1. Welcome to SportsJournalists.com, a friendly forum for discussing all things sports and journalism.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register for a free account to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Access to private conversations with other members.
    • Fewer ads.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Preps coach's DUI sentencing: sports or cityside?

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by pseudo, Apr 4, 2008.

  1. Frank_Ridgeway

    Frank_Ridgeway Well-Known Member

    Unless this is Petticoat Junction or the coach was some kind of major legend, I think A-1 is a complete overreaction for a DUI in which no one was injured. In many papers, most murders don't make A-1. If the guy was basically a gym teacher who had a garden-variety 5-5 football team, it's either a news brief or a short sports story. Early in my career, a highly successful coach got drunk, stole a ham in a grocery store and ran for the exits as if he were going for a TD. (No, he didn't spike the ham.) It was a news brief with a small hed. People couldn't miss it, got a good laugh over it, but we didn't want to give them the impression that the newspaper had complely lost its mind. Some perspective, please.
     
  2. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    It should run in sports. Most papers do it the other way, which is total chickenshit because most of the people who know this guy will miss the story. This happens with pro athletes all the time.

    If it runs cityside, you should refer to it from the sports page. Most papers don't do that either...
     
  3. fishwrapper

    fishwrapper Active Member

    Even if the guy took a ham?
     
  4. BillyT

    BillyT Active Member

    Mizzou: I see lack of refers as an on-going problem, in this case and others.

    Sometimes there's a real lack of communication between sections.

    I have seen the local front (B1) use a grab shot from a game (say a weather photo) and neglect to refer to the game story and additional photos in Sports.

    I learned good and bad things from Gannett, but one of them was to refer things that are related. (or semi-related).
     
  5. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    It should run as a brief in sports... Nothing more, nothing less... For a prep coach DUI to be A1, you're either in Podunkville or the guy must be a local legend.
     
  6. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    Agree completely... No paper does refers better than USA Today. If you have a chance to do a section-to-section refer, you should always take advantage of it.
     
  7. jfs1000

    jfs1000 Member

    Small paper,12k, I think it should be an A1 story. It's a news story until the coach resigns, then it's a sports story.

    The thing is, this is a person in a position of authority in the community. At a bigger paper,where this would have been buried because there are DUIs all the time, it could become a sports story (the DUI not the news, coach firing or resigning is the news).

    Classic journalism debate, I love it.
     
  8. Frank_Ridgeway

    Frank_Ridgeway Well-Known Member

    So is every teacher at the school. But because he's a football coach, we assign it more importance. I can see that in a small, remote community that might be the case. The flip side in a small community is that newspapers have to treat the locals like actual human beings instead of as mere fodder for stories. I'm not sure the short-term benefit of selling a few more papers that day is a good tradeoff for giving people the longer-term impression that the paper, probably written and edited mostly by outsiders, will gleefully capitalize on anyone's bad times and blast it all over Page One. I suppose that would depend on the sensibilities of the community. Again, I think there's no blanket answer.
     
  9. Mediator

    Mediator Member

    We have some coaches where this would definitely warrant A1 on a slow news day. If the question is who should write it, sports or news, I'd say the beat writer gets it, with an assist from news if needed.

    We go big with locals, some might say too big, but a coach's DUI is not the time to back off. Anyone who calls to complain that the coach's life was ruined by the paper should get a very polite, "Don't drink and drive." Last I saw we weren't giving away vodka with subscription renewals. Although...
     
Draft saved Draft deleted

Share This Page