Coming soon (?): The APSE wire service

A memo has gone out to APSEs asking if they're sports sections would be interested in sharing content on a national basis.

 

This is somewhat odd. Why would the Associated Press Sports Editors want to obviate the need for the Associated Press?

 

interesting.

 

I suppose it could reduce the need to hire freelancers for stories where the quick and dirty AP write up won't suffice.

 

What I get from the memo is would papers/sports sections be willing to share coverage to help defray travel costs. Oklahoma plays at Alabama, a paper in Alabama shares its game stories with Okla papers. Same with pro beats.

Maybe I'm missing the gist of the memo.

And APSE is just the organization under the AP umbrella. Organization could just as well be NSEA - Newspaper Sports Editors Association.

 

I don't see papers staffing games for other papers when places are cut to the bone as it is.

I have a feeling that this is a way to get around having to even pay stringers. Why pay for the cow when you can get the milk for free.

 

Sure, it could work as a trade-out arrangement. When our team comes to your town, you send two staffers out there -- your beat guy and a second person, with the second person acting as "our" beat guy for the day. Then when your team comes to our town, we do the same thing. Both places save on travel costs and make the writers all talk to each other by phone so the ones covering the game know what angles must be addressed for the visitors.

Built out the cooperative big enough and you don't even need to have an exact tit-for-tat, with home-and-home games. You just all enter into it with the idea that things mostly would even out over time. Then, when your teams are on the road, your beat writers can do other stuff, can take some time off (and reduce comp-time obligations) or can even mix in their FURLOUGHS!

I'm amazed someone hasn't pushed this idea sooner. Like a national association of managing editors or a global cabal of bean counters, few of whom would put much value in having their own writers at every single road event.

 

How long do you think that lasts before some SE says, "I don't have two bodies to spare for that game. Take our story or leave it."

 

Well, with little value is being placed on game stories these days, maybe it would end up being a glorified AP gamer - more straight down the middle instead of slanted toward a certain team.
Not saying this will work or is a great solution. It's throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks.

 

Hey, if a metro wants to share content with the Podunk papers so we can get something more than pure AP copy, then, yeah, I think I'd be OK with that.

This could be a real boon for the non-Metros.

 

Anything we get from the APSE would be an improvement from the supposedly "straight down-the-middle AP gamer" that gushes about the home team winning if our road team loses.