Odd AP rant for an NFL Sunday, but ...

It still annoys me that AP can barely be bothered with Walker Cup coverage today. No photos; barely a story.

Getty is all over it photo wise.

This will resonate with ... nobody, but I had to do it.

 

What the hell is the Walker Cup?

 

Yeah, I had to google "Walker Cup."

 

"You only cover our golfers when they're professionals!"

 

I think the Walker Cup is something so far down the list of what 99 percent of the readers want and expect to see that it shouldn't be much of a priority for the AP.

To me, it's one of those things where if the readers of your paper/site are that ravenous for blown-out Walker Cup coverage, then your paper/site should send a writer and photog to the Walker Cup to give them what they want.

 

I know what it is but I'm not sure 1 percent of readers would know any players.

 

AP had used a stringer when the Walker Cup was in the U.S. in the recent past. But AP staffed the world triathlon championship today in Beijing, so yes, the wire service should have had something beyond perfunctory coverage.

 

The AP these days is working as much for websites, who pay the bills, as newspapers. Websites don't have limited news holes. Websites would probably like a complete story on something like this. Asking for photos might be a bit much, but a full story is a reasonable expectation.

 

Oddly, I'm actually surprised at how "negative" this is coming back (I don't mean that I'm hurt, I simply mean I'm surprised at the "not worth it" response).

Golf was comparatively dead this weekend, and AP still has a vast European network, so it wouldn't have come out of NFL or college coverage; and the U.S. team has one of the best amateur teams in history on paper -- and they got beat. (Two of those kids won Nationwide events this year, and one shot 60 in a PGA Tour event).

But I'm a bit golf-centric as one of my side jobs here, and so I guess that's mostly it. It was mildly important in that little world.

 

Big deal here because it's a big golf community and we have a major amateur event, but I doubt the Walker Cup holds much interest in the vast majority of the country.