Sportswriter/Paginator, Goldsboro (N.C.) News-Argus

Not a bad place to add to your clips covering pretty decent preps, DII Mount Olive and ECU.

 

You won't go to East Carolina very often. That's Rudy's little pet project ...

Need proof? Look up Goldsboro on a map. Measure the distance to Greenville, and measure the distance to the three Atlantic Coast Conference schools in the Triangle. Why ECU and not the ACC schools?

I rest my case ...

 

The section is not bad. But it is not good either. It did a month ago have a Martinsville refugee on staff.

 

Appgrad I don't know what your opinion of good is but your standards for a good section must be pretty high. From everything I've ever seen from Goldsboro design wise, it has been pretty good visually. But then again, for all I know you could work for some nearby paper to Goldsboro and have your reasons for feeling the way you do.

 

No, his standards are fine. When a paper's largest photo is at the bottom of the page - as Goldsboro has done from time to time - I don't think that's good design. Ask some of the others here to see if I'm crazy.

Appgrad is on the money. The News-Argus is not that good in terms of design. It's either built on the same template, and occasionally it's difficult to find the centerpiece story. Either that, or in lame attempts not to offend someone, a non-definitive centerpiece, which is worse. At least take a stand on what your main story is.

 

Bluedevil - Yes, my standards are high. Goldsboro is a perfectly ordinary Eastern North Carolina section. There's nothing wrong with that, but there's nothing to be proud of either.

 

Sort of like taking arrogant shots at papers you aren't willing to admit you consider rivals is nothing to be proud of either.

 

Now this a strange little battle.

 

If what Sam Mills is saying is true, and I have no reason to believe otherwise, it's piss-poor design I would expect from a college freshman.

 

Goldsboro's design isn't a complete train wreck, nor is it something that should be mocked. But bluedevil83's defense of the paper smacks of homerism and/or having never seen well-designed papers.

Bluedevil83 simply can't accept what AppGrad said. For what it might - or might not - be worth, I side with AppGrad on this one. Goldsboro did redo some things a few years back under another SE. Grade it an "A" for effort - that much is there - but a "D" in execution. The section front looks like the same Quark template in terms of story boxes, photo boxes and such ... it's much more paint-by-numbers than any well-designed paper should be. Another problem is the centerpiece and accompanying photo are lost on the page. The centerpiece photo isn't much bigger than the other photos, and the headline isn't much bigger than the others across the top and/or bottom of the page. Occasionally, as I said before, the photo below the fold - at or near the bottom of the page - was largest. Talk about a no-no ...

I await bluedevil83's response that I'm arrogant, too.

 

OK, I was there, and where AppGrad is and where the Argus is, there is no competition with each other. If either paper sold that far away from each other I'll eat my hat. Hell, I was in the middle of the two for a couple years and neither of them even encroached far into MY territory. The only "competition" anyone in any of those towns between Goldsboro and the beach and north of Fayetteville has to be the N&O. Not even the Greenville paper has penetration into our markets.

 

Goldsboro's section is ugly. That doesn't mean this isn't a good opportunity for a young writer.

And Rudy covers ECU? Didn't he graduate from there? I only ask because his support of the teams he covers is well documented, so I shudder to think what he would be like in the pressbox of his alma mater. Nice guy though. Always very helpful.