Thanks for all the ink, now drop dead

Newspaper reporter in upstate N.Y. penned the following:

http://www.uticaod.com/archive/x1658742486/All-media-should-have-equal-access-to-pairings

Short story is that the local H.S. basketball committee allowed TV (24-hour cable news operation to be precise) exclusivity in unveiling brackets for the upcoming H.S. hoops playoffs, then released info to other media later in the day.

Already bad enough that the whole thing took place on a Sunday (when newsrooms are minimally staffed), but going the extra mile by freezing out a bunch of papers throughout the area until after 6 p.m. -- there are at least eight dailies impacted -- that give a lot of love to H.S. sports all year long just seems wrong.

I went to the cable station's web site 24 hours later and could not find any mention of the seedings anywhere. No brackets/pairings in graphics form, no links to the video of the announcements. Nothing.

What is it about TV that makes normally rational adults make stupid deals like that? Sure, there's money involved -- but it couldn't have been a huge amount considering we're talking about upstate N.Y.

I file it under "penny wise, pound foolish."

 

I hate to say it, but with funding in the schools being what it is, I think it's legit. The NCAA does the same thing with its brackets and CBS. If they send the release out at the end of the show and you can get in touch with some coaches (finally a good use for Twitter!) it should work okay.
Do I think it's a good thing? No. But understandable.

 

This ain't the NCAA... TV isn't kicking in the billions at that level that the NCAA does and the allure of the tourney sure as hell isn't what the NCAA Tourney is. At that level, the high schools NEED the papers. And if I were one of the eight papers, I'd avoid mentioning the name of anyone or any group involved... fuck 'em.

 

Is this really that big of a deal? So you put the pairings up on your paper's website at 2:30 p.m. instead of maybe 11 a.m.
Much ado about nothing.

 

This is nothing new. .. Not in high schools here anyway.
The WVSSAC has a similar arrangement with both TV and radio stations for football and basketball pairings.

 

Slappy4428...fuck 'em, indeed.
If I'm one of those eight papers, I'd be pissed.
I will say here in Louisiana with our prep governing body, they do their very best to accommodate all media at the same time or make a valid attempt. Or make it very clear to release it at a certain time.
These TV dudes are too many times the very ones who break an embargo on All-State teams, which is another vent for another day. At least it's that way with too many of our electronic media types around here.

 

Wouldn't mind seeing this moved to the Journalism board. Might get some more opinions on it over there.

 

They do the same thing with state basketball brackets in Indiana. And the media gets the girls a lot later than 6 p.m.

 

High school athletic associations are almost always transfixed by Tee Vee.

The rinky-dinkiest UHF station gets fawned over, while a 500,000-circ major metro is told to go fish.

 

I wonder how the brackets are chosen that it's a big secret. In my neck of the woods, you know at the beginning of the season how the brackets are set. The only unknown is who the district champions are and the district runners-up. Once you know, you just plug in the names District 1 champion, DIstrict 1 runner-up and so on.

How complicated it is up there?

 

The respective New York sections have their own rules for seeding. In central N.Y., I believe it is done strictly on regular-season winning percentage. Ties are broken by head-to-head results, but I'm not sure how complicated it gets if the teams split their home-and-home or didn't play each other at all.

I wouldn't want to be the paper that goes out on the limb and publishes/posts without the benefit of having the official notification. I've been around long enough to know that some mistakes don't get caught until the very last minute.

There was a year long ago when I saved our football committee some embarrassment because I knew my way around Harbin points better than they did and was able to point out a mistake when I showed up five minutes after the seeding meeting ended. They had to quickly re-do the pairings but were able to fix the mistake before any media had been notified.

That was the one and only year that I was given a preferred parking space in the stadium lot where the TV vans were always allowed to park.

 

What is it about the Tee Vee industrycxt that prompts prep governing body officials, fans, coaches and everybody else sometimes to go goggle-eyed, yet regard us print types as Satan-like?
Beats the hell out of me.
And this is another good example.