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Football overload?

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by MidwestSportsGuy, Dec 1, 2008.

  1. Just a general question for folks who are far wiser than I: Does anyone else struggle with trying to avoid too much football copy/coverage? Our state playoffs are going on right now, with one local team left (two teams until Saturday), so we have a ton of coverage there. But I worry about overloading the front/section with too much football.

    Case in point: For Sunday's paper, we had two local gamers and a sidebar, and I was petrified about playing another football story on the front. I settled for a story about a boxing trainer (actually a pretty cool read) when the Oklahoma-OSU game was a huge deal. And Goldberg had a solid piece on potential NFL MVPs, as well as a nice look at rookie NFL head coaches, but I stayed away from those two stories because I was worried about presenting too much football.

    Is this right?

    The NFL stories were nicely done, and the boxing/trainer story was a bit of a reach. But is football so unequivocally popular as to warrant the whole section front?

    And does this even make sense? I'm tired, maybe a bit delirious, so if you'd like to tell me to eff off, I'd completely understand.
     
  2. greenlantern

    greenlantern Guest

    You go with what's most important. If it's all football, then it's all football.
     
  3. buckweaver

    buckweaver Active Member

    All depends on where you're at, what season it is, and what else you're dealing with. I know I've done a number of all-football fronts around this time of year.
     
  4. zebracoy

    zebracoy Guest

    Totally understand where you're coming from, because it can be difficult to balance all things out.

    That being said, having, say, high school, college and NFL stories are enough, in my mind, to achieve that balance.
     
  5. 2muchcoffeeman

    2muchcoffeeman Well-Known Member

    ;D
     
  6. FileNotFound

    FileNotFound Well-Known Member

    I've put together all-football fronts in November, and all-basketball fronts in March. It's all about what's important to your readers. I wouldn't throw an NBA or baseball winter meetings story on the front just to "balance" it if your readers care about neither.
     
  7. SF_Express

    SF_Express Active Member

    Not knowing with you live, I'd still have to guess that big football was more important to your readership than a boxing trainer -- even (or maybe especially) if it's the "Angelo Dundee returns" story AP moved.

    You don't do a cover with diversity as your No. 1 thought. You do it based on what readers are interested in. In many parts of the country, football, football, football is it this time of year.
     
  8. deskslave

    deskslave Active Member

    You run a story like the boxing trainer when there's nothing else going on. You run football when football's going on.

    I often wanted to tell people who complained that we paid far too much attention to prep football and not enough to, say, cross-country or golf that if we based our newshole allocation on attendance, football would get every headline and cross-country and golf would get 4 inches of agate.

    And that's the point. There were 60,000 people at the OU-OSU game, and there probably were another, what, 25,000? 50,000? who would have gone if they could. Prep football games in that part of the country attract thousands. And if you walked up to 100 people on the street and asked when was the last time they went to a boxing match ... let's just say you'd get some funny looks.
     
  9. silvercharm

    silvercharm Member

    I don't think you can run too much about football, especially if there's a local tie. Doesn't matter if it's high school, college or NFL. It's football, and it drives the bus.
     
  10. spnited

    spnited Active Member

    Sorry, midwest. No way the boxing feature or NFL wire pieces should have gone ahead of Okalhoma-Texas Tech in that part of the country.
     
  11. forever_town

    forever_town Well-Known Member

    Too much football is never enough.
     
  12. Editude

    Editude Active Member

    Choosing between/among wire pieces for the Sunday front? Is that the most relevant approach?
     
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