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How to survive spring sports madness (preps)

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by FuturaBold, Mar 6, 2009.

  1. GlenQuagmire

    GlenQuagmire Active Member

    Prioritize what is important and what your readers want. Match that with your reality and do your best. You can't have a round-up for every sport because it's just not realistic that each one matters that much to the average reader. Sometimes agate is the right place instead of a round-up.

    Run your call-in deadline time every day. Make it 30 minutes earlier than needed. That gives you enough time to see what you have and what you still need to track down.

    That's how we did it at all my mid-sized shops with shrinking staffs, budgets and news hole. We won APSE individual and section awards on a regular basis, so it worked for us.

    Develop a plan, do your best and go home after putting out the section. The sun will come up even if you don't have a few scores. (You should have someone at the most important events to begin with, but I know that's not always possible.)

    If you cannot accept the reality of what is possible - and your bosses won't accept it - find another career because this one is not getting better anytime soon.
     
  2. shotglass

    shotglass Guest

    What I'm suggesting is that there is a place for every score, but some highlights may not make it into the roundup. Perhaps you have to make some judgments in that. We do it throughout the year with 46 schools.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 1, 2015
  3. JackReacher

    JackReacher Well-Known Member

    So what do you guys do with the call-ins? Do you just run one sentence roundups? Cut certain games? Just boxes?

    High school sports were the most irritating part of my life for the past 10 years. Were.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 1, 2015
  4. shotglass

    shotglass Guest

    Roundup, lede drops into 9-point elipses notes. And not every game has to make it. Cannot emphasize that enough. Not every girls' tennis match has to make it.
     
  5. jps

    jps Active Member

    you're wrong, shots. it does. when you sell your section on local preps, to not intentionally include something is stupid.
     
  6. shotglass

    shotglass Guest

    Been doing it for years, jps, and I'll tell you, it's working for us. Make a game earn a spot in the roundup.

    Now, if the expectation is there after 10, 15, 20 years that West Bumfuck-Shalom Christian is going to get a line in your roundup no matter what, yeah, people are going to notice. I'm just saying we established things the other way a long time ago.
     
  7. jps

    jps Active Member

    well, if it works for you, my friend, kep at it. but I've never been at a place where that would fly. and, frankly, I'm not a fan of it, either. the more names are in our section, the more copies we sell to grandma - which is why I'm convinced that track sells a crap-ton of papers in many areas.
     
  8. Hank_Scorpio

    Hank_Scorpio Active Member

    Stuff like golf, tennis, track can all be done in agate.

    If you put that in roundup form, it's basically a reguritation of the agate. In this time of limited space, it can be hard justifying putting something in twice in the same paper.

    If you need to highlight an individual thing, do an honor roll type thing with 5-10 performances. That way, you can do about a 20-inch roundup, a one-column five inch roundup and then your agate package. And you are still getting in all the information that gets called in into the paper.



    And whoever said pray for rain: That's usually not a good option, because they will reschedule, but they never call and tell the paper the new date. So one day, you look at the schedule and it looks light, but then you get beseiged by calls from makeup games.
     
  9. ewt112

    ewt112 New Member

    I
    I just drink a bottle of Jameson, that always helps me get through it....nightly.
     
  10. jps

    jps Active Member

    if we're talking agate-heavy stuff, yeah, the bulk of it is in agate. but if you do a few grafs, for track, you can get team winners, a few high performers, maybe some great times or distances, etc. Three grafs is fine and then run top 6 in events. same sort of thing for golf and tennis.

    again, this doesn't work in some markets. I get that. but in many places, local/area coverage is the most important part of the section. so I surrender some ap wire copy before I give up local copy.
     
  11. micke77

    micke77 Member

    FuturaBold....we're a small daily with a two-man staff and we've got a "ton" of schools to cover..
    and yes, this time of the year is a major test in perseverance, patience, etc....not to mention the current economic state for all of us.
    if you count all of the prep spring sports teams we have, it numbers approximately 35..then we've got two colleges in our coverage area, so add in even more teams to deal with.
    but staying strictly with the preps, we have it fairly well organized to where we have scorekeepers and designated stat keepers email us brief rundowns, boxes or stats on their games.
    let's say monday's schedule has 12 different games/events being held...whatever we might cover or get reports on, we do a roundup story for tuesday's edition.put 'em all in one story and boldface each different game ...if we cover a game, then we'll usually lead off with that game, then add on the other reports under it.
    and we'll do some features on the prep spring sports athletes/teams as often as we can.
    but with so many freakin' games being held at this time of the year, it's virtually impossible to do a really good job, especially with a small staff. we also run big photos or go heavy on photos, too.
    i don't know if it's me or what, but i've noticed for several years now where many of our prep baseball and softball teams practically play every freakin' day. i mean, when do these dudes study?
    anyway, that's the way we try and approach it.
     
  12. FuturaBold

    FuturaBold Member

    Great feedback everyone ... I think I'll make more of an effort to write features each week, to give various teams in the area "depth" like some have suggested... I really don't hate spring that much because there are a lot of good teams in our area this spring ... basketball was a pain because everyone was terrible ... the challenge will be keeping up with everything...
     
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