High school sports reporter — Memphis Commercial Appeal

Just curious, how do you get any actual games in with a 6 p.m. deadline? A day late? Or do they even bother to put games in the paper any more? I've been told it's all online and features for the actual newspaper. And how do you know what or who to do a feature on when you the reporters rarely see a game?

 

The last prep guy John Varlas left for the Daily Memphian with Calkins. The Memphis Tigers basketball beat will now be covered by this guy.

 

These are all good questions. The attempt to save money with an early print deadline will reduce game coverage, and will indeed make it more difficult to find worthwhile stories.

The Athletic is avoiding the old model of wrting deadline gamers, in part because the audience for those stories isn't what it used to be. But beat writers are still going to the games and following teams closely.

Newspaper editors have no doubt discovered that same decline in those reading gamers, and therefore aren't putting resources into those kinds of stories. Most of the folks making those decisions, however, don't understand that games are often the place local publications can connect with a variety of people and find the most interesting features that make people want to purchase a subscription.

 

Thanks, got that confused.

 

Exactly. I bet I get half my feature ideas during the season from a kid that does something in a game. Fans are all interested in the kid because of what he did. So I do some digging, find some interesting background stuff and bring it out. Features don't just come up to you and scream "do a story on me" ... there's usually something that initiates it and that's where game coverage gets some unnoticed value.

 

Some more on the Daily Memphian, via Poynter.

In Memphis, a non-profit site will launch with a staff of 25 and a huge war chest

 

Apparently, grammar skills is (sic) not an absolute must.

If you’re going to push out your chest and claim journalistic superiority over the ways of a bygone era, at least make sure your subject and verb agree.

 

They're interviewing candidates I'd imagine they have their guy/gal early next week. Tennessee's regular season begins next Friday.

 

Greetings from Dave Ammenheuser, a regular contributor on this board. I oversee #TeamTennessee sports, including sports at The Commercial Appeal. There are many incorrect facts on this thread. So let's clear them up:
* Yes, we are in the process of hiring a prep reporter for The Commercial Appeal. We've interviewed many applicants and have a finalist visiting Memphis this weekend. We hope to have someone on board soon.
* The past prep reporter left us over the summer. He has joined a startup in the city.
* We recently promoted Mark Giannotto from covering the UMemphis TIgers bball team to columnist. He's off to a great start.
* We have hired Drew Hill to cover the UMemphis Tigers bball beat. He begins on Monday.
* There is no middle manager coming aboard to manage sports.
* The early deadlines mentioned are true. It's same deadline that many, many papers have across the country. Those deadlines do impact the daily print product, but have no impact on our huge online audience.
* Our reporters go to games. The previous statement from a poster was simply silly. We will have reporters at games each and every week ... regular season, postseason, etc. If you want to know more details, feel free to reach out.

 

So was this filled? A lot of the HS content from Memphis has come from Jason Munz, former USM beat writer who is a digital producer now. Saw no Memphis reporter listed in the Tennessee Super 25 poll today either.

 

So Dave, is an incorrect fact a fact then?