Is your paper cutting back on prep football coverage?

That happens every year, no matter who the prep guy was.
The News has always had people come in to take prep calls. If they work out, they get more opportunities for shifts in the rest of the week.

 

We're being limited in our prep football coverage. And we're in a big prep football area. We cover about 10 schools and all are used to getting covered most weeks. We do a special high school sports section every Saturday with just high school football game coverage. This week covering 6 games and have to fill about 6-8 pages.

This week 2-3 games won't be staffed, but have asked them to call in.

We have two prep writers, so that hurts us. We get our college guy for two weeks until football season kicks off. This week we can use three freelancers.

Hopefully something changes.

 

Birmingham cutting back to two counties is a GIGANTIC cutback. Even as Jefferson is a big ol' county, this will leave a bunch of schools out in the cold.

RB

 

Finances be damned, all this does is push away readers to other sources such as Jimmy's Podunk High Nosepickers Blog to see photos and the "story" about the Nosepickers hanging on for a win.

It also will fuel the perceptions that rural and private schools aren't as important. Readers don't care about a newspaper's financial status. They just want to know why the games aren't being covered or are only on a Web site but not in print.

 

Good luck with that.

 

it will cut some close schools, true. But it will also cut schools that W-A-Y out there. And for football, they'll still accept call ins from those schools.
So it isn't as damaging as it might seem.

 

I know a major paper that has had its staff seriously scaled back twice in the past year. The SE just sent out a memo that the entire staff, including pro beat writers, columnists etc. had to have their Friday nights free to cover prep football.

 

Which goes hand-in-hand with cuts to stringer budgets. None of the three nearby papers I've dealt with in the past have any plans to pick up stringers for HS football this fall.

 

Oh, it's got massive fail written all over it, but there's no other option at this point. We just don't have the manpower.

 

Our coverage is increasing, as in content. The schools we cover -- seven main ones, one small private school -- hasn't changed, but we'll be producing a wrap each Sunday for all football games.

 

We're down a full three people since last season plus a photog, so there's no way in hell stuff is going to get covered like it used to. I'm so dreading trying to shoot and take notes at the same time. I've done it for other sports, but never football. It just seems like it has massive fail written all over it.

 

Gotta love a paper that completely cuts the stringers and part-timers, does away with a third of the already small prep staff and then announces that they are going to cover the hell out of HS football.