High School Basketball

We did heavy coverage on two No. 1 teams battling this past week. They were girls teams. In this case, the coverage was considerably greater than the guys.

 

Is the question "Are you even-handed in your coverage of boys and girls high school basketball?"

 

I don;t really understand what Fourth and 8 is getting at.

There's noting wrong with stressing the big game or games, boys or girls. You can;lt have 50-50 every night. But if you spread the wealth throughout the season, then you should be okay.

But hell, go with the big games.

 

I'm talking story inches.

 

Furthermore, I see metro guys roll in at halftime of the girls game, eat a hotdog and get a glimpse at the official book. I rarely see them do anything but the boys.

 

One thing I never do is count inches when trying to keep things even. Just tell the story. If one is told in 14 inches, and the other 18, then sobeit.

 

As Bob said, you go with whatever the bigger game is to lead. Yesterday we led with girls soccer, biggest game of the day. And we've led with all five winter sports (boys and girls soccer/basketball and boys wrestling) depending on the day and the game/meet.

 

What he said. And if someone takes/took the time to measure inch count and e-mailed you about it, they can go fuck themselves.

 

Amen.

We do combo stories, leading with the most interesting game no matter if it's the boys or girls. Some schools have dominant a dominant girls team, and the parents of the boys team bitch because the girls get more coverage.

 

I'd like to think my coverage is balanced. It's probably easy for me since my coverage area is pretty small (four high schools) and the main town loves its high school teams. I try to put the "bigger game" as the lead, whether it's the boys or girls (they play doubleheaders almost every time out here). If I think they're of about equal importance, I try to make them "co-leads", kind of splitting them at the top, 3 cols for one and 3 for the other (could be 4 and 2 depending on the ad layout).

I think that in an average season, when both teams are doing equally well, the coverage balances out over the course of a full season.

I don't try to make sure that story inches are equal on a given day or over the full season. But I think at the end, they'll be very close. If one team is doing very good and the other very poorly, then the better team will get more inches but, even in those years, the other team will occasionally have their moments. Fortunately, I suppose, one or the other has been maybe 8-12 or 7-13 but I've never had one of those teams go 1-19. That would really skew the inches.

 

We don't do combo stories, but some night if there is a boys-girls double header we don't always cover both, depends on the game. You're never going to satisfy anyone, so do what you think you need to do.

Someone who loves you one week may think you're the devil the next.

 

Soccer is a winter sport? You certainly aren't in Kansas ;0)