"We don't cover you because you don't generate page views"

This is what one of the local sportswriters said was the primary reason very few of all local college basketball games anymore.

So, how am I supposed to accept this, especially after the local shop.goes all out on the NAIA championship game here and local reaction to the Dolphins making the playoffs?

Listen, I get it that staffs and stringer budgets are shot...heck, when the Cleveland Plain Dealer didn't staff our game with Cleveland State at the Q, it was an indication that the issue may just be beyond the red line, but I'm remaining strong that my players deserve the coverage. And that's why my student writers are cranking out optionals after each game for our web site.

What say you.

 

Start your own newspaper, prove him wrong, drive them out of business.

 

The readers decide who deserves coverage, not the SIDs.

 

My old paper used that reasoning to pretty much cut out all small-college sports coverage. (And our closest D-I is a good 75 minutes away, so ...)

And, dan, it's harsh, but never use the reason that the athletes deserve the coverage. That will get you nowhere with bottom-line decision-makers. Swimming parents have been using that to no avail for decades.

 

"You need to write things even if no one reads them" doesn't seem like a winning argument to me.

 

Did they give y'all pretty good play during football, or are you being shut out across the board?

 

Decent by today's standards, not like the good old days of lead,sidebar,notes and fall stats. Road games, AP.

 

Heck, I could have told you they wouldn't; Cleveland State is barely a blip on the radar there.

I can't quite figure out from your first sentence, are you complaining they don't run your releases or that they don't staff many games?

I'm sure this probably nothing new to you and most others reading this, but the days of having "well-rounded" sports sections with good coverage of minor sports are gone. Most editors in today's climate aren't going to waste the few hours of the few writers they have and do things like put them on the prep girls beat, send them do to a feature on the college's rowing team, do a feature on the local guy who hiked the Appalachian trail, etc. They don't have the reporters or the hours to do it, and they have bosses breathing down their backs about metrics.

If the reporter is telling you that your articles don't get read online, I'm sure the paper has the metrics to back it up and he isn't bullshitting you. Coming back with "You can't seriously tell me anyone gives a shit about the NAIA championship?" isn't going to change their metrics or their minds.

Also, be happy your players aren't getting into trouble, because that could draw page views and give your school more coverage than it could dream.

 

Why exactly do they deserve coverageÉ

 

They run the releases. From that end, I'm good.

My question has been answered. Thank you.

 

It's obvious you completely do not understand the newspaper business to even ask such a question. Yeah, like we're going to send writers to a place nobody is reading. That makes real fucking sense.

 

And as we all know, Cleveland State was on NCAA probation at the time