How Orlando dealt with Donovan saga

Bill Speros, deputy sports editor at the Orlando Sentinel, details how his paper handled the Billy Donovan situation recently.

Speros writes: “The Billy Donovan story drove Orlando Sentinel print and orlandosentinel.com on-line readership to levels and pushed our staff to relentlessly advance this story on a 24-hour news cycle. Donovan signed to coach the Magic only to change his mind and back out of the deal a few days later, leaving the Magic stunned and sending aftershocks up and down the Sunshine State.”

http://apse.dallasnews.com/2007/june2007/061907speros.html

 

Did they measure those on the Richter scale?

 

Is there room for more measuring on Andy Richter's scale??

 

Don't you just love "aren't we great" pieces like that!

Self-serving bullshit.

 

spnited's (valid) opinion aside, I really liked two things:

The illustration with the mascot shrugging his shoulders and the faux-wedding invitation was exceedingly well done.

And the final-day stuff, with StanVan on the front and Donovan on the back, was simple but well-done, as well.

 

I appreciate Bill's insight. I had asked another editor about this very topic. It seems like a great learning experience. Everyone who was involved learned something valuable. It's these pressure-cooker situations that build the best reporters, editors and deskers.

I live on the edge of the paper's coverage area. I was one of the few who received the early edition of that night's paper. As one guy at the Sentinel said, I was among the few who for whom the Sentinel looked stupid.

How many out there work a paper that never would have tackled this problem that late in the evening?

 

Easy on Andy Richter. Nice little obesity drive-by the sake of a quick play on words. I doubt he weighs that much more than Mike Richter, who would be just as random. Nobody shines on doomed-from-the-start sitcoms the way Andy Richter does.

 

Nifty little read, except Ira Winderman in the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel broke Stan's hiring on his blog a good half-hour before anyone else had it.

Edit: I'm told that since the Sentinel and Sun-Sentinel are sister papers, this shouldn't matter. I disagree, but whatever.

 

The "Wedding Crashed," page is one of the funniest use of graphics I've seen in a long time!