1. Welcome to SportsJournalists.com, a friendly forum for discussing all things sports and journalism.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register for a free account to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Access to private conversations with other members.
    • Fewer ads.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Golf coverage in the new newspaper world

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by accguy, Apr 14, 2008.

  1. joe king

    joe king Active Member

    Then we hate you. Some of us are trying to do this for a living.
     
  2. accguy

    accguy Member

    The reason why I brought this up is because I kept thinking about what a former boss said. He always said that in most cases if it was an important enough story for it to be on our cover, it was important enough that we cover it ourselves.

    I understand the local-local thing at small to midsized places, but at big metros, there is still an expectation of giving big national events a good run (at least with the wires).

    And, for the record, I'm not making any judgement in this, was just curious how widespread this has become.
     
  3. bydesign77

    bydesign77 Active Member

    Hate me all you want. I don't care.

    I used to try to do it for a living, too. But it sucked.
     
  4. playthrough

    playthrough Moderator Staff Member

    I've said it here before -- golf has to be the hardest beat to snag in this business. Most of the golf press corps have been at it for a long time (would you leave that gig?), and some of that have left big papers in recent years have not done so by their own free will, nor have they been replaced by someone with the same travel schedule, space, etc. Golf, even in places where it is practically a local beat in terms of pros living in the backyard (see St. Pete, Orlando), has been a far too easy cut off the budgets. Can't see that reversing course anytime soon, like many things in this biz.
     
  5. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    The days of having one writer who only covers golf are almost dead... Most places have golf writers who double on some other beat...

    Hell, Orlando doesn't have a real golf writer and they're in Tiger's backyard...
     
  6. Michael_ Gee

    Michael_ Gee Well-Known Member

    Newspapers ignore national sports events at their peril. It's all very well to say "find those local stories" but know what, in a big city like Boston, people don't give a fuck about any local story but their own locality. If a junior golfer is from Needham, people in Lexington ain't gonna read about him. He's not their neighbor's kid.
    Golf is a niche sport with a demographic to die for. If a newspaper is cutting back on golf coverage, it should consider firing its publisher and advertising manager instead, cause they're incompetents.
     
  7. Greenhaus70

    Greenhaus70 New Member

    Mr. Gee, I couldn't agree more with your post. While there are things that need to be cut in tough times, golf makes a good chunk of change for newspapers. It boggles my mind why some want to cut golf coverage. In our coverage area, we have several pros on all the tours and golf is always the first thing gutted.
     
  8. playthrough

    playthrough Moderator Staff Member

    I've never understood going "local" with golf coverage. Yes, there's a lot of people that play golf on a lot of courses, especially Florida. That in itself is not newsworthy. And if you asked many of them they'd agree. They want their hole-in-one reports and scores from their Wednesday morning scramble in the agate, then they want to read everything and anything about the pros.
     
  9. EE94

    EE94 Guest

    Don't think Augusta is going to give a stringer credentials anyway, so argument is moot
     
  10. pressmurphy

    pressmurphy Member

    But that doesn't mean you have to send your own guy to cover Augusta. What you get off the wires will suffice for all but a sliver of your readership.
     
  11. accguy

    accguy Member

    That is unless you have a local win.

    Ask the Des Moines Register about that. They had Zach Johnson win and had nobody there. There were many who were quite embarassed.
     
  12. bydesign77

    bydesign77 Active Member

    Yes, I know that. That's why i said if you'll get me the creds, I'll go for free.
     
Draft saved Draft deleted

Share This Page