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NY Times: Special rules for special talents.

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Evil ... Thy name is Orville Redenbacher!!, Jan 21, 2009.

  1. daemon

    daemon Well-Known Member

    Wow.

    I take it you aren't in the business?
     
  2. Alma

    Alma Well-Known Member

    I take it you think most of your readers are?

    Most - not all, but most - game coverage today is the equivalent of inviting your friend over for dinner and adding tomato and onions to McDonald's double cheesebuger in your kitchen. Then you say to your friend "see what a great meal I made for you?"

    Now, maybe you're the Bob Woodward of gamers. I dunno.
     
  3. Johnny Dangerously

    Johnny Dangerously Well-Known Member

    When I covered college baseball (the same team for seven seasons), it was important to go on the road, and not just for gamers. I developed relationships and sources that paid off with features, breaking news and trust with the readers. Three days of having a team all to myself, with no other media there? Are you kidding me? What a way to mine as much as possible from a beat. I added a blog that kept the readers informed of a lot of things they said they enjoyed, especially from road games they couldn't attend.

    I was the only member of the media who traveled to the team's road games, and it did matter to readers. How do I know that? They wrote and told me. They posted on the blog and told me. They came up to me and told me. Did I reinvent the gamer? No. Did I try to make my gamers more than just a gamer? Yes. And I wrote columns nobody else could write, because they saw maybe 10-15 games, not all 56.

    Some readers were content to read the team's news release reprinted in the rest of the state's newspapers. Many wanted to know what the SID or Web site or coach's show weren't telling them, and as much as possible I gave it to them. Going on the road for 20 or so games a year was a way to own the beat, and I wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

    They are sophisticated fans. They know when they're not got getting what they could be getting, and they let me know they appreciated coverage they didn't see anywhere else. In fact, I don't know of another paper that covers every game of its hometown college team, home and away. And it might never happen again. That paper has decided not to travel to the first 12 of 15 conference road games this season.

    Trust me: The readers will notice.

    I'm sure your premise holds up in other places, but it's not true in my experience with a beat I was able to own primarily because of travel and all of its benefits.
     
  4. Hammer Pants

    Hammer Pants Active Member

    Alma,

    I find it VERY hard to believe that you honestly think there is no benefit for readers if their beat writer goes on the road.

    Guys who travel have enormous advantages, and their readers reap the benefits. I've been on both sides of it — on the same beat, in one case — and it's not even close.
     
  5. Ben_Hecht

    Ben_Hecht Active Member


    Alma . . . if you're right . . . the war is over, and the battle is no longer worth fighting.

    I'll slash my wrists before I embrace the thinking behind the latter concept.
     
  6. Hammer Pants

    Hammer Pants Active Member

    Why should we have multiple outlets covering any game? Let's just have one media representative covering every single game. It's just a game story. One person ought should be able to handle it.

    Now we're being efficient! Readers won't miss anything!
     
  7. DirtyDeeds

    DirtyDeeds Guest

    Well, this thread took quite a turn. I might buy the argument that it's not totally necessary to send people on the road to cover something like the U.S. Open, the Masters or even the Super Bowl. But if you're talking about a local pro/college team, I just can't get on board with that. I'd agree that many readers (including me sometimes) don't pay a lot of attention to bylines. But a good beat writer should be able to add some perspective and tell fans of the local team what it means to them. You're not going to get that off the wires, and I certainly don't advocate taking it off TV/radio. And as others have said, the cultivation of sources on these trips is just as important.
     
  8. Ben_Hecht

    Ben_Hecht Active Member


    The Gannett hierarchy gets a collective woody . . . and knows precisely why.
     
  9. cranberry

    cranberry Well-Known Member

    Alma,

    Compare this, perhaps, to the guy who stays at the Marriott instead of the Motel 6 and goes crazy kind of wild one night and orders the T-bone instead of the strip steak at Outback:

    http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2009/01/22/2009-01-22_former_merrill_lynch_ceo_john_thain_resi.html

    The CEO of Merrill Lynch was abruptly ousted Thursday after it emerged that he had spent $1 million to decorate his office - including buying a $1,405 trash can - and rushed out billions in executive payouts just days before his firm went under.

    FYI, it was $4 billion in bonuses he paid out to Merrill Lynch executives in December, including $10 million for himself. Merrill Lynch posted a $15 billion fourth-quarter loss.

    So, sure, there are greedy middle class people. I know some. They're hoarding the company's Bic pens so they don't have to shell out at Duane Reade for their school-age kids.

    They're not bringing the economy down, though. The John Thains -- and there are plenty of them -- are taking down the economy.
     
  10. Ben_Hecht

    Ben_Hecht Active Member


    Oh, its already down. Quivering. And not getting up, anytime soon.
     
  11. Joe Williams

    Joe Williams Well-Known Member

    Agree 100%. And obviously I'm not on Alma's team in any way, shape or form. My posts on Marriott points prove it!

    But I also believe that, in these times especially, it's reasonable that sports sections start surgically selecting more road games that can, in fact, be skipped. You don't need to make all 81 road games in MLB or all 41 in NBA or even all in college hoops schedules to build relationships, share down time, find feature angles, boost visibility and credibility, etc. Those benefits can come from the multi-city longer trips, while single gamers can be covered far more cost-effectively by stringers.

    A lot of sports journalists bristle at the mention of any skipped road games, and it hurts their credibility in a real-life tough economy. No, they're not supposed to like it, but they're supposed to be smart enough to understand and accept it. Sometimes you have to skip the miles, points and meals by staying home, if only so you can afford to staff the things that really matter.
     
  12. daemon

    daemon Well-Known Member

    As long as papers continue to send writers to Wimbledon, the Masters, out-of-market non-championship playoff games, and the Olympics, there shouldn't be any talk of skipping in-market road games.

    Keeping one writer home from the Olympics is probably enough to fund four years worth of road games that you would consider skipping.
     
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