Times - Jet/ Giant Beat Coverage

Saturday's New York Times - John Branch with solid football story on The Giants 4 DE's and how they are all being utilized.

On the otherhand - Nada about the Jets.

It just makes no sense to cover 2 pro football teams in same city a different way.

 

No but it's been done that way for a long time. The Jets are the stepchild to basically every publication in and around the city except for Newsday.

 

Not true at all. At various points The Times has had some very good writers on the Jet beat.At one time Dave Anderson was Jet beat writer.

 

Boots, you might be right. Or not. The new deputy sports editor is from Newsday, with which I'm obviously familiar. Perhaps she wondered why nobody was writing news stories about the Jets.

 

Boom, you are totally lwrong. The Jets have had good writers. However, when compared with the attention and the coverage of the Jets, there is no comparison. The Giants coverage beats the Jets coverage.
The Giants have a longer history and more championships and arguably bigger following.
Newsday's coverage has been stellar because it is Long Island's paper and Hempstead, home to the Jets' offices, is there.

 

You're guessing, though. And I am, too. But how do you know that the NYT did not see this as an experiment and that had they decided it worked wouldn't have tried to do it on every other beat? How do you know that the NYT didn't see this as the optimal way to cover a beat, but the NYT's other beat writers were not as adept as Crouse at covering a beat this way? The NYT, after all, does not follow other newspapers' lead in covering New York City, Washington politics, crime, celebrity, culture and a wide variety of other topics. They intentionally go their own way on lots of things.

I just find it ludicrous that anyone with more than a couple years in journalism would think that any beat writer in any competitive situation isn't getting direction from an editor. Or that any editor at a major newspaper would allow a beat writer to work in a loose-cannon fashion to "appease" a writer. Do you honestly believe that any sports editor is going to value a beat writer's feelings over the good of the paper?

Did the NYT miss any major news on the Jets beat over the past two years? I can't think of anything. Can you? If so, tell us specifically which stories.

 

How did we end up here? All I was suggesting is that the Times often doesn't do things the way a meat-and-potatoes sports section does things. Yet it remains the gold standard, or at least the place where everyone supposedly aspires to work.

What I don't get is when a place so self-consciously goes against the grain, like the "Lifetime" coverage of the Jets discussed here, suggesting that it somehow knows better. That's no way to cover a football team, yet it persists for two years. In how many roles does the NY Times have the cream-of-the-crop reporters or writers? I happen to think Selena Roberts and the baseball guys are outstanding, but are their other columnists and beat writers at the top?

Since it's the New York Times, they ought to be, right?

 

Frank, she was not a loose cannon. I don't know whether there were promises made upon her arrival but she did her best. This move should work out well for her.

 

Whatever the reason does it make any sense that a major newspaper like The Times would make a change partway through the football season ?

It would seem logical to start a new beat at training camp when it would be easier to get to know the landscape.

 

Boom. You did not read the thread. Talent has been leaving in droves. The move kind of shores up some perceived weak spots in coverage.

 

Perhaps this factors into the changes in some way:
http://thebiglead.com/?p=3287

 

From the above-mentioned Big Lead item:

Assuming Big Lead is including women its tally, how can you overlook Selena Roberts?