it's not all about local-local, silly

[cluelesswonder]

so we had a pretty big-time football player go down yesterday in the big-time game a little up the road.

top story on the entire web site (news and sports) today? yep, it's mr. wonderful and his injury. combined, all five versions of the story (factoring in various updates) drew 5 percent of our web traffic -- far, far more than the next most popular story, and about 20 times what our top high school sports story drew. consider that we're about three hours from the house that he built and in a region where that team isn't the only football option (plenty of colleges, other pros).

am i saying that there is no place for local coverage? no. but local coverage is rammed down everyone's throats every day as the be-all, end-all, and guess what? it's drawing flies. shouldn't there be some accounting for this?

 

[GB-Hack]

You've got someone who agrees with you here.

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/60850/

 

[BrianGriffin]

so we had a pretty big-time football player go down yesterday in the big-time game a little up the road.

top story on the entire web site (news and sports) today? yep, it's mr. wonderful and his injury. combined, all five versions of the story (factoring in various updates) drew 5 percent of our web traffic -- far, far more than the next most popular story, and about 20 times what our top high school sports story drew. consider that we're about three hours from the house that he built and in a region where that team isn't the only football option (plenty of colleges, other pros).

am i saying that there is no place for local coverage? no. but local coverage is rammed down everyone's throats every day as the be-all, end-all, and guess what? it's drawing flies. shouldn't there be some accounting for this?

I do think any serious proponent of hyper local would say it's about what locals care about and not just local. So the state university that's two hours away from your town fits in. The regional NFL team fits in. The U.S. Open might not.

That's been the way it has been presented to me in a hyper-local shop...