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Passive acceptance of no space?

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by BB Bobcat, Sep 10, 2007.

  1. forever_town

    forever_town Well-Known Member

    When the Class AA team I cover hammered its way into the pennant race, I started running a box score and standings (which I hadn't done before) to go along with the gamers. Once the major league team started calling guys up from the team and they predictably started losing, I scaled it back to just doing gamers.

    Had the team been in the playoffs, the box scores would have continued for sure.

    It's just reality in this day and age. If your team had a legit shot at a World Series and they were cutting space, you could bitch. Otherwise, just turn in your 15 inches and call it a night.
     
  2. John Newsom

    John Newsom Member

    BB: The real test becomes if you have breaking news or a good read to get in the paper. That's where you need to scream and holler.

    Really, though, you have to figure that your readers are tuning out of the day-to-day stories because your team is DOA and are probably more interested right now in high school/college/pro football and maybe the NASCAR Chase. (That's what your editors are burning space on, right?) Newsprint is expensive, ad revenue is flat, and your paper probably isn't adding pages (or maybe not as many as in the past) to accommodate all of the fall sports.

    So are there any good stories out there you haven't had a chance to tell? Any good features/trend pieces you have on your tickle file? Any where-are-they-now pieces you've been meaning to get to? There might be a good feature/profile or three out of your team's September call-ups. Be creative. Now's the time to stretch and maybe take some chances.

    But speaking as a deputy associate assistant to the sports editor, you're fine as long as you're keeping tabs on the team (meaning you're not missing any news - injuries, call-ups, demotions, trades, etc. etc.). You do get bonus points if you give me a Sports-front feature on an otherwise slow news day (the Wednesday and Thursday papers are rough right now because of how football schedules its availabilities) or write something so compelling it's got to get in the next day's rag.
     
  3. shotglass

    shotglass Guest

    I don't think this is right.

    One sign of the creme de la creme of beat writers is those who know what isn't news. If you're covering a dead-end club, you don't make news where there is none. Your editor probably made the right call ... don't be an inch-counter.

    Of course, this is a classic case of an editor's outlook vs. a writer's outlook ... so make of it what you will.
     
  4. steveu

    steveu Well-Known Member

    I agree with the obvious answer... extra stories/notebooks on the web, w/refer to the net. Then don't put your game story on the net and refer the readers to the paper for that.
     
  5. Editude

    Editude Active Member

    The net-only notebook/sidebar is obvious, but in addition make that extra call or two and come up with a great off-day piece that demands cover play and more space.
     
  6. spnited

    spnited Active Member


    Keep dreaming about the "great off-day" piece that "demands cover play and more space." It ain't happening.

    This is a writer thinking he's going to be God's gift to his newspaper. What great off-day peice are you getting from a dead-in-the-water MLB team in September...some Class AA call-up?
    Unless you're breaking a story on the GM, manager, et al getting canned, your team is irrelevant and you aren't getting any "great off-day piece" out of it.

    Sorry, folks, this is reality talking.
     
  7. imjustagirl2

    imjustagirl2 New Member

    Plus, all these people talking about doing web-only things...do your desks not read the web-only stuff?

    We do.

    Any writer who's getting 15 inches of space but sending us 45 inches of writing is going to be persona-non-grata around our desk. Then again, we're really short-staffed.
     
  8. spnited

    spnited Active Member

    Short-staffed or not, IJAG, you speak from the standpoint of reality.
     
  9. pressmurphy

    pressmurphy Member

    Presumably the desk was already reading the 30-45 inches the writer was producing pre-cutback. No reason that the desk can't continue processing that copy, even if the notebook and/or sider are web-only content.
     
  10. spnited

    spnited Active Member


    What dream world do you people live in?
    Why do you need 30+ inches on a dead-in-the-water MLB team unless there is some kind of breaking news, controversy, scandal?

    You want to throw a bunch of notes on the web, fine. Blog.
     
  11. imjustagirl2

    imjustagirl2 New Member

    But there was obviously more space then. Meaning there was more copy. Meaning they scheduled more help.

    A space crunch leads to fewer deskers as there will be fewer stories. Cutting deskers and keeping copy is kind of crazy.
     
  12. hockeybeat

    hockeybeat Guest

    I probably should have been clearer. The great notebook, the illuminating sidebar, turn those into blog entries. I don't know how it works at other papers, but the bloggers at my ex-shop had free reign to write whatever they wanted to--within reason--and post it on the site or e-mail it to the web department and they would post it.
     
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