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Game Advances & Out of Town Coaches

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Pete Incaviglia, Jan 11, 2008.

  1. mike311gd

    mike311gd Active Member

    Then ... maybe.
     
  2. Some Guy

    Some Guy Active Member

    Publisher: "You're supposed to be covering the White House, Bernstein. Why are you talking to this Deep Throat guy?"
     
  3. mike311gd

    mike311gd Active Member

    Tell me about it. At first, I thought he was just gherkin my chain. But he was serious.
     
  4. awriter

    awriter Active Member

    And that's a bad thing?
     
  5. Smallpotatoes

    Smallpotatoes Well-Known Member

    During the football season, I did a couple of advances in which I quoted the out-of-town coaches extensively and tried to give the readers an idea of what Friday night's opponent was going to be like. In one case it was the season opener and the other team had a new head coach. in the other case, the team was in its first year in the league.
    I got some snide remarks from one parent about it. "There aren't many readers in those towns," he said.
    His point was people buy the paper to read about their team and their kids, not some other team and somebody else's kids.
    Perhaps I overdid it.
     
  6. pressboxer

    pressboxer Active Member

    This is actually part of our weekly package for our city high school football coverage. On Wednesday, we'll run a notebook on the local teams, catching up on things we might not have gotten to in the gamer and stuff like that.

    On Thursday, it's a story on the upcoming opponent that can range from some personality-drivien feature (I did one on a defensive tackle who played the lead in a summer production of 'Fiddler on the Roof') to a general overview of the team.

    Friday is some kind of feature on the local team in conjunction with a gameday page that covers most of the nuts-and-bolts kind of stuff (matchups, trends, stats, etc.).

    A few of the nutters around here will go off when the opponent feature makes it sound like the other team may actually be competent, but they tend to shut up pretty quickly when I can publicly embarrass themback up that view with hard facts. They just seem to think that every word not written about their kids is wasted.
     
  7. TheMethod

    TheMethod Member

    I don't necessarily have a problem with going with the out-of-towner, but don't be surprised if your readers don't read that story, no matter how fresh the angle is. A large number of readers pick up the paper or go to the Web site and scan for Joe Hometeam stories. If they don't see it immediately, they move on.

    As a reader, I only care about the opponent if there's something really remarkable about that team. I'm not saying we should pander to fanboys every day, but it's worth keeping in mind.
     
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