How much is your shop cutting travel?

So you think your readers care more about a meaningless baseball game in September by two teams that have long been eliminated from contention than the biggest golf or racing event of the year?

 

They care not at all about NASCAR. We never have and never will cover a NASCAR race.
And the wires can cover the Masters more than adequately. If the Mets are in Pittsburgh, the wires are writing a Pittsburgh oriented story.

 

WHAT travel?

When I cover the D-I school in my county, I generally only do the school's home games unless the road game is in the same state.

I made one exception because the play-by-play guy on the school's student-run radio station offered me a ride. I know better than to put any expenses from that trip in for the bean counters to shit a brick about.

 

I cover the local junior college. About the only thing that's been mentioned in our travel is hotel stays must be preapproved and no more than $10 a meal (which is fucking mind-boggling since I never, ever that much for a meal unless I'm out all day and that's the only meal I turn in).

I never go to road nonconference football games or basketball games except in rare cases. And luckily, most if not all the postseason stuff is not far away.

So as of now, little change but I'm sure that will not be the case come the start of our fiscal year in October.

 

There were a lot of major newspaper's who had credentials to the Olympic Trials that weren't sitting in their assigned seats. I guess they could have been sitting elsewhere, but I didn't see anyone from the Star-Telegram, Palm Beach Post, Richmond Times Dispatch among others. I saw a photog from the Morning News, but never saw a writer.

 

I get your point.

However, I will always, always, always argue that it is impossible to properly cover a major beat without "being there." Even when you're talking about a losing team playing out the string. That's when you've got to start laying the groundwork for the offseason -- is your coach going to get fired? Do you need to finagle cell numbers from a couple of players? What if star player says your coach *ought* to be fired -- and you aren't there? Yipes. Point is, you never know what is going to happen on the road. You need to be there "in case shit."

I understand these are tough times, and some difficult travel choices have to be made. However, I wouldn't cut travel on your paper's most major of beats lightly. I've found that, by just being there at the tail end of a crappy team's season, you can get some pretty good scoops.

And the readers DO care about that.

 

And that is what I figured a lot of the big papers were doing. They applied for credentials, decided it was too costly to travel and hired freelancers. I'm guessing some of the guys working there were making a serious killing by freelancing all 10 days.

 

So what are you doing with two "rest days" in Eugene, Gola?

 

Drinking. Beer.

 

i'm shocked how few daily papers are at the Trials.

according to the official seating chart -- http://www.usatf.org/events/2008/OlympicTrials-TF/mediaInfo/SeatingChart_Tribune.pdf -- these are the out-of-town papers that were credentialed ... just 30 papers?? unreal ... how many of these are actually in Eugene?

Washington Post (2)
USA Today (1)
Chicago Tribune (1)
L.A. Times (1)
Boston Globe (1)
N.Y. Times (3)
San Diego Union-Tribune (1)
San Jose Mercury-News (2)
Oakland Tribune (1)
San Francisco Chronicle (1)
Fort Worth Star-Delegram (1) (that's what the seating chart says)
Minneapolis Star-Tribune (1)
Richmond Times (1)
Palm Beach Post (1)
Boulder Camera (1)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (1)
Houston Chronicle (1)
Indianapolis Star (1)
Arizona Republic (1)
Dallas Morning News (1)
Orange County Register (1)
Miami Herald (1)
N.Y. Daily News (1)
N.Y. Post (1)
Denver Post (1)
Salt Lake Tribune (1)
New Orleans Times-Picayune (1)
Seattle Times (1)
Detroit Free Press (1)
Detroit News (1)

 

I know these are for sure there.