What people want in a sports section

Of the four women who've worked in our sports department over the past 20 years, the two full-timers moved on to other careers, one of the part-timers graduated from college, moved away and got married, and the other part-timer quit after spending most of her time here taking selfies in the bathroom mirror at work (not those kind of pics) and posting them on social media.

 

And? What's that have to do with the current discussion?

 

It was in reply to justgladtobehere's post on Page 2.

 

Do you see a lot of stories like that?

 

What has your sports section dropped over the past five or 10 years? I realize this figures to vary from sports section to sports section.

 

I do.

It gets really jarring when a coach is fired and he's suddenly an idiot who should have been fired years ago, after years of "we're so lucky to have him!" stories.

 

And weed ads.

 

I think you're right. I've been in some markets with allegedly heavy interest in preps, and it was actually weak -- research showed -- outside of high school football.

 

Sometimes, though, we should be writing, exactly, for the people who are not at the events.

Primarily, I would lean toward features, news and newsy features with a good peg over gamers. But really, part of the problem for sports sections these days is that younger people who only like to read snippets, tweet and texts, etc., don't actually have a concept of a whole sports "section," and the fact that there might be other things of value than what they happen to glance at all in one place. Even more than used to be the case with headlines in print, they are just perusing, and only reading what specifically grabs them -- and even with that stuff, not too much length/depth is wanted.

And, video is a waste of time unless it is of something truly moving, affecting or currently newsy/important. And most day-old sports stuff doesn't qualify as that.

 

I personally feel it's hard to make a hard rule about how sports sections should look.

Every paper's audience is different. Maybe more importantly, every paper's staff is different. Some writers just don't craft gamers as well as they can craft a feature. For others, it's far easier to write a great feature than a great gamer. Some staffers are comfortable in front of a video camera, while others are not.

If I get a chance to run my own sports department, I want to do what it takes to put my writers in positions where they can succeed. I don't want to force someone to write a feature every week if that's not his or her strength. To me, that doesn't help the overall product. Obviously there still usually has to be a blend of gamers and features, but it's about finding that correct balance in order to make your paper the best it can be.

 

Agree with a lot of what you say here....but if you are only writing one feature a week in sports coverage now...you're doing it wrong. I think it's important to show your face at games especially Friday night football and the feature you are writing....but I would say 3 features and maybe 1 or 2 gamers per week.

Also, one thing about HS is yes, some are anal about things like too much access or video in walkthroughs etc., but you can gain a lot more access to coaches and kids for the most part than you can at colleges or pros. Take advantage.

 

I believe there are a lot of small to mid-sized SEs who hear from their bosses LOCAL LOCAL LOCAL and the easiest way to fulfill that demand, outside of areas where there is a dominant pro or college team, is preps coverage. It doesn't matter that outside of high school football, there is little demand for coverage save for a great feature or state tournament-type game. It's fulfills the local mandate.