How should metros cover high schools in new era of clicks?

Fredrick is quite opinionated and it's probably tiresome, so I will not offer my opinion until I read at least 20 responses on this issue. PLEASE answer. This is a critical topic to the future of what were once traditional metros.

Q: How should metros cover high schools in this day and age of declining manpower (the layoffs aren't stopping anytime soon it appears), reluctance to pay for stringers, and the corporate types frankly not real concerned with any beat that doesn't produce a lot of hits/page views. Quite frankly, high school coverage is quite suitable for the print product when mom, dad, grandparents proudly purchase the paper to read about Junior and save the clips. High school coverage on the Web perhaps is not so juicy to the corporate types stifling their yawns.

A: Please give me your answer as to what metros should do about high school coverage, acknowledging the fact that just 5 years ago, certainly 10 years ago, high school coverage was HUGE. The editors' reasoning? Names are important and the more names in high school stories, the more print subscribers. Now?? Hmmm, the reasoning still makes sense, but these stories aren't getting the clicks/page views. Please tell me what metros should do regarding high school coverage and who fills the need for this type of coverage if you suggest the metros simply pretend high school sports do not exist anymore. Fredrick thanks you in advance.

 

1) Rankings. Top 20s cut across lots of communities and therefore generate a lot of clicks, and usually a lot of shares/complaints on social media.

2) Social media presence. A metro that does a feature on a high school athlete should get a decent amount of FB shares through either the kids family or the school. FB share is the modern fridge clip. Should drive respectable Web numbers.

Frankly our Prep stuff does about double the clicks of the pro stuff on average. We're not a metro or a news-breaker on pros though.

 

Frederick, What is your definition of a traditional metro? Any daily, only those in metropolitan over 1,000,000 or something in between. I think the topic is interesting but the answer will vary by the type of market.

One reason I am interested is that I believe the future of the newspaper industry might be that smaller papers will be rolled up into larger newspapers and there will be gigantic regional papers. Printing already frequently takes 100 miles. If one plant is already printing a bunch of papers it might make sense to combine all the smaller papers into one paper and then essentially print zoned editions for the entire area. For example, the Bee papers in California already print in Sacramento. McClatchy moves to a combined staff combine and prints zoned Modesto, Fresno and Sacramento editions. At that point is there enough in interest in preps in Fresno to bother covering them? I use this as an example. Given recent layoffs at McClatchey maybe I just be using past tense, not future tense.

 

The metro daily I am most familiar with is the Houston Chronicle, and they have a strong preps presence, because, well, Texas. Usually it's a dedicated page or two inside, but I've seen preps get the CP treatment for football playoffs and features.

 

If you're not going to do the bare minimum (hire a stringer), then it doesn't matter how you "cover" this. "What do you mean, you need first names of players on the other team?"

 

I think a good feature story on a high school athlete can draw plenty of "clicks," even in big markets like Chicago, Phoenix, Kansas City, etc.

The problem is finding those good feature stories when you don't staff any games or even take calls from coaches.

 

I don't work for a metro so I have no idea what a metro is thinking or pursuing for its content. Reluctance to pay for stringers? Sorry if that's the case but it's not where I work. We'd hire more if we could find them. They're cheaper than full-timers with benefits that can get overtime. My opinion, the metros should just dump them. With sites like MaxPreps and Rivals, along with small daily/weekly local papers, the metros really can't waste their time on such a small portion of readership. Yeah, if they find an extraordinary feature to do, then go for it. Otherwise, dump the preps and stick to what metro readers want --- pro coverage.

 

If I was at a metro I'd focus my prep coverage on stuff with crossover appeal. Human interest features, recruiting, truly exceptional accomplishments. Game coverage would be limited mostly to football. Rankings too.

I used to be at a paper in a decent sized college town, but not really a metro. The full time staff was completely consumed by the college because interest was high not only for football and basketball, but also baseball, lacrosse and soccer. High schools were handled entirely by freelancers.

Nobody knew it, but the managing editor talked to me a couple of times about the possibility of outsourcing preps. There was a local magazine/web site (run by a former staffer) that was kicking our ass on high school coverage and the though was maybe a deal could be made to have them provide prep coverage for the paper. I didn't go very far, partially because the managing editor left. I don't think it would have actually happened, but the idea was out there.

 

Couple of thoughts:

1-Don't give scores or stats away on Twitter. You will often be the only media outlet there, and you will always be the outlet with the biggest presence/name recognition on the scene. Take advantage of that fact. If you are going to do live updates, you do them on your website. You don't tweet out every play for free. You also don't tweet a final score/result until there's something on your website to link to, and you certainly don't give away any great details, quotes, etc. on Twitter (or any other social media platform). Make people come to you to know what happened.

2-Rankings, rankings, rankings. Statewide, regional, big schools, small schools - rank schools every way you can. It fosters interest and debate. It's not a bad idea to find a way to generate individual player rankings in every sport if possible.

3-Figure out what schools and teams drive traffic, and give them more attention. If you find a story that resonates, ride that story all the way until the end. Don't feel you have to spread the coverage wealth.

 

I really think there's no one correct answer for this. One metro area may go crazy over its high school football. Another may not give two hoots.

I know our area would not look kindly upon a drop in preps coverage. But what I don't know is how much it really matters anymore. They'll either keep buying the product while complaining, or they weren't buying the product in the first place. I've seen this played out in so many other areas, such as no staffing of our local minor-league hockey and baseball teams. People don't like it, but it doesn't move the needle.

Where I am, I look at it like this. The local paper took its five-figure circulation hit when it dropped from seven-day publication to three-day a few years ago. The subscribers who remain don't really think about cutting the strings. They just mindlessly pick the paper up if and when it shows up on the porch. And as for the electronic product ... well, when I'm shown that an online operation can support a newsroom, I'll give it more serious thought.

I do like what Preacher said about not giving your product away on Twitter, although the ship has probably already sailed on that. Only the hardcores are going to look for a gamer -- or what passes as a gamer these days -- after essentially getting play-by-play tweets all night.

That may be the most defeatist post I've ever made on the newspaper business. Fredrick, you gotta love that.

 

Thanks very much (so far). Cmon please keep commenting then Fredrick will give his much awaited (kidding) take.

 

I think Preacher Roe really hit the nail on the head with his comments about Twitter. It's the dumbest thing newspapers or any other media have ever embraced. Why in the hell let Twitter get all the credit for the work you've done?? It makes no F'ing sense. Put the content on your website. Use social media only to promote your website. Quit killing yourself by feeding the Twitter.