The local paper needs the football club more than the football club needs the local paper

Some context is necessary here, I think.

For one, sports coverage in the UK is decidedly different, especially in soccer. Players aren't just available in the locker room. In fact, they're rarely available at all. Just look at this article about a new deal with rights holders about access:
Premier League clubs agree to give TV channels more access to players | Football | The Guardian

Could you imagine the NFL media partners agreeing to such a limp policy? Not in a million years.

Also, Swindon Town may be a third tier English soccer team, but it is the primary sports team within Swindon. The closest higher level teams are Bristol City (one level up in The Championship, or second tier) or in the greater London area. Both of those would be about an hour away via public transit, if not more.

So it very much is a centerpiece to the local paper's sports coverage along with rugby and cricket. Yes, the Premier League gets significant coverage, but it's just like a local paper here running stuff from the AP on the NFL while focusing primarily on the mid-level college athletic department. Think of any minor league town that has a baseball team with a huge following but no college or pro sports. Or a college town with a huge presence but no minor league team (or a really small one, Class A or rookie ball).

Those beats are the lifeblood of the sports section along with prep sports. But there isn't any such thing as prep sports to cover in the UK. So where an American small town paper could double down on high school coverage, this paper can't. Neither is there an opportunity to cover college athletics, like a paper might do when ousted by a minor league baseball team. It looks like there are a couple other lower tier pro sports - including ice hockey - in Swindon, but not the big three.

So you can't just say screw it. The team owner or president is sadly right; the newspaper needs the team a lot more than the team needs the newspaper.

The paper needs to find a way to cover the team in a new way. Do more analysis - even if it's watching from the stands or on television. See if you can get in for nearby away games. Simply not covering the team would be a dangerous move.

 

Thanks for the insight. Sounds like this is exactly what the paper plans to do.

 

So ... what do you want to do? Fuck 'em or give the readers their story?

 

Oh, snap! You got me! You know, it is possible to change your opinion when given more info.
Based on the info SoloFlyer provided, this is a big part of the paper's coverage, so I guess you have to cover it. I initially said I'd put it in briefs, but if it was a paper with other things to focus on, I'd say fuck em. Clear?

 

Give the readers the story while fucking them.

As long as they're 6s.

 

Oh. I did not realize you had been given more INFO. Info is good.

 

Various stakeholders in the club still want to get their message out. That's where good journalism comes in instead of the paper's sportswriters just waiting for their spoon-fed info.

 

Yes, every newspaper decision is based on the market. And all markets are different. What is so difficult to understand? I am coming from a perspective of a paper that focuses more on bigger fish than a third-tier soccer team. If this paper focuses heavily on this team, then that changes things. Depends on your priorities and readership's expectations.

 

So far, many of the reporters in the field for the start of NFL training camps have informed me that such-and-such team has undergone an attitude transformation this offseason, while such-and-such players dedicated themselves in the offseason to being the best they can be, frequently with a new training and diet regimen.

Can't get that kind of info from the cheap seats, that's for sure.

 

You sure you're not simplifying that one a little bit?

 

I absolutely am, for effect.

Some NFL writers parlay their access into tremendous insight. I certainly don't want to be one of the people here who goes to the other extreme and decrees that access yields nothing useful.

But journalism can be practiced without choreographed access. It's harder that way, of course. But the flip side is that there is not the same implied quid pro quo that can be troublesome.

 

Can journalism be practiced? Sure. Can it be good journalism? Not having access loads the dice against it. Without it, you lose many of the arrows in your quiver—features become more difficult to virtually impossible if you can't actually talk to anyone, developing sources gets exponentially harder when you can't log in face time on-site, you miss the nuances of things like team mood and subtle hints from the coaching staff because you only see them in an antiseptic, carefully controlled environment, if at all. And if your boss still wants you to come up with the same amount of copy as before, you're reduced to the rank speculation, rumormongering and other forms of dimestore analysis that any shoe-sniffing moron with a steady internet connection and an elementary-school mastery of the language can cough up in blog or slideshow form.

There's no substitute for being there.