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Seattle Times goes back on decision not to run NBA boxes

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Versatile, Jan 7, 2012.

  1. jr/shotglass

    jr/shotglass Well-Known Member

    I'm pretty sure a big part of this is me being grouchy old-guy journalist. But I think it's becoming far too easy to get away from the agate in a sports section. It's the first thing a lot of SEs turn to when they have to slice.

    We want to make sure we get our quota of "good reads" in the paper. We want as many voices as possible. And we tend to forget that a lot of sports-section readers go directly to the agate pages to get a quick look at exactly what they want.

    You can get it online? Yes. Don't care. If they can get it online, they're usually not getting it from you, whether you have STATS or not. They're getting it from NFL.com or Yahoo, etc.
     
  2. apeman33

    apeman33 Well-Known Member

    "You can get it online" seems to be a big reason why our paper/chain wants to cut back on the use of AP, agate, things like this. My argument is, why do we want to basically say to people "Go ahead and get is somewhere else. We don't care."? Why shouldn't they get it from us if they want to get it from us?
     
  3. HejiraHenry

    HejiraHenry Well-Known Member

    This seemed like a significant decision to make without some test-bedding.

    Put together a focus group of readers, something.

    That said, once you make a reasoned decision, you have to stick with it.
    Which is tremendous incentive to get it right.
     
  4. Fran Curci

    Fran Curci Well-Known Member

    Print readers don't want to be directed to the Web to get the basics. They want it in one place -- that's why they pay for a newspaper. You can debate what constitutes the basics, of course. I think you have to provide MLB, NFL and NBA boxes/summaries, at minimum.
     
  5. HejiraHenry

    HejiraHenry Well-Known Member

    What about NHL summaries then?
     
  6. Versatile

    Versatile Active Member

    You should be listening to your readers when they come to you en masse, though.
     
  7. jr/shotglass

    jr/shotglass Well-Known Member

    A bit more regional, I think. I don't know if a New Mexico daily really needs NHL sums.
     
  8. HejiraHenry

    HejiraHenry Well-Known Member

    Concur.
     
  9. HanSenSE

    HanSenSE Well-Known Member

    I do run NHL sums ... but during the season (except for the All-Star Game, Winter Classic and significant news), that's it. I figure, every schoolyard has basketball courts, but the nearest ice is about 45 miles away.
     
  10. jr/shotglass

    jr/shotglass Well-Known Member

    That leads into something else about agate, something my previous SE lived by, and I never lost. He said it was his intention to cover everything he could in the daily section -- either by copy OR by agate.

    Now, that's not to say that if he had a game story on LSU-Alabama last night, that he wouldn't feel the need to run an agate summary. Rather, he was talking about fringe items. If we weren't planning on giving any copy to an MLS roundup, we'd try to at least provide standings/scores on it. If the IRL race only merited a short, we'd try to get the results in agate.
     
  11. Versatile

    Versatile Active Member

    I agree with half of that concept, shotty. There are certain things that I think your goal should be "this needs to exist in our paper," and MLS and IndyCar qualify. NHL may qualify depending on your location. Small Champions/LPGA Tour events and Formula One are at the opposite ends of that spectrum for most papers. (Newspaper sports section readers really love golf.) But I think that if you run a NASCAR race story but no story on IndyCar, that NASCAR agate is still way more important than IndyCar agate even for a small race.
     
  12. Bud_Bundy

    Bud_Bundy Well-Known Member

    Several years ago, a long departed SE got the brilliant idea to do away with prep agate. This was well before the internet, so there was no other outlet for box scores. Jeebus, you never saw so much backtracking when the shit hit the fan. On second thought, it didn't hit the fan, it was dumped on us by the truckload. Stupid, stupid, stupid decision.

    His official reason: We were going to expand roundups and put more information in text. The real reason: We had a new computer system and processing the agate was a problem.

    Lots of grandmas liked to see Little Jimmy Benchwarmer's 1 point in that box score.
     
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