Mlive: Letting parents cost their kids scholarships

[boundforboston]

There are a lot of generalizations about audience size. Anyone want to share their page views for high school content vs. other stuff?

 

[Dick Whitman]

Really, I think that local sports coverage should move more in the direction of treating it like an arm of the education beat, and de-emphasize on-the-field exploits and results. Even in the case of towns where people come out to the games, probably limited to football and basketball, I'm not sure how much blood-and-guts coverage is necessary in 2015. These are teen-agers playing a game. I spent a considerable percentage of my adult life covering prep sports. I enjoy prep sports. I played prep sports. I just don't know if it's news worthy of limited resources in modern times.

 

[Ace]

The advantage high schools have is that people feel a connection. So if you went to Podunk High 20 years ago, you might be interested in coverage of Podunk High. Or know kids or relatives going to Podunk High.

Built in audience -- though they may check in and out.

If you have a 5K that draws 3,000 runners, you can and should cover it, but how many of those runners are competitive? Very few so people aren't really looking for the same type of coverage of that event.

However, if you have a cyclist, triathlete, etc. with some interesting story or achievement, you write the story.

 

[dirtybird]

My understanding - someone correct me if I'm wrong - is that MLive already has excellent beat writers covering Michigan. And given how intensely the program is covered - by Detroit's two papers, by radio, by the student daily, by a fan blog that's competitive - I think you rely on your few resources there to produce enterprise and refocus your resources where other people aren't.

It's not that I think college beats are unworthy. It's that the access is tightly controlled by the schools. In terms of players and insight, you'll get what Jim Harbaugh and his merry band gives you. I guess you can throw a ton of resources at that, but you may end up describing the color of Harbaugh's hat.

So I'm hearing some good enterprise on Harbaugh's hats? The suits will love it.

 

[JayFarrar]

Who reads high school sports coverage? High school kids.

If you are trying to build a local-orientated, general interest newspaper, high school sports isn't just something you do, it is something you must do.

If you want to get young people in the habit of reading the paper, you have to provide them something to read.

Now, if the argument is in this era of declining resources you throw the baby out but keep the bathwater for the adults, that's something entirely different.

If that's the case, you don't have much of a compelling reason to keep the vast majority of sports coverage but, then, not all of us want to read law journals or trade publications. That's also a more diffcult ad sell.

 

[Justin Biebler]

Three pro markets and big state U are 100 or more miles away from us here in the rural Midwest. People still attend basketball and football games and the small towns that surround us still identify with their local schools, its the center of activity in many villages. We're perhaps the prep sports leader in our region, we'll keep doing it too because our advertising department can sell it.

 

[swingline]

One thing that has been reinforced over and over through my career in journalism -- most people can't write worth a damn.

But every time you mention that you're a staff writer or a freelancer, those same people will tell you that they're a writer, too. Usually working on that great American novel.

 

[Matt Stephens]

Someone asked about page views. Here's just a sample from this past week with the state track meet (all classes).

• We had 10 stories from the three-day state meet (live updates, notebooks, recaps, features) that did 4,000, combined, across desktop and mobile.
• In 24 hours, my story on Colorado State offering COA for athletes did 5,000 desktop, 9,600 mobile.
• As of 9 a.m. this morning, my Monday column on two former CSU players with the Broncos is at 726 desktop, 794 mobile. Current trajectory, the column will do better than 50 percent of what state track did by noon.

HOWEVER!!!

State track photo gallery crushed it with 20,000 desktop, 10,000 mobile. Usually, mobile galleries for sports do better, but not this time. Still, 30,000 page views for the state track meet is great.

Plus, we went all-out with prep track in print this weekend. Like I said, we don't do a lot of gamers during the regular season, then go all out for state and what we get are thank-you calls rather than complaints. Even though that taking some time off from CSU coverage, it was worth it. Three days of state track covers and a couple of inside pages are below. And yes, that is a horizontal broadsheet cover. I was skeptical, but I think it worked out well.

 

[I Should Coco]

Your shop did a nice job covering the state track meet, Matt. Even the agate page looks sharp, with enrollment classes set off and event labels bolded.

There's good stories and photos to be found at big track meets, and it looks like you had decent weather, too. Always a bonus.

 

[steveu]

Yes. Nice job, Matt. Everything looks solid in this section.

 

[Matt Stephens]

Thanks, all. There were sacrifices we had to make, though. We had two reporters and two photographers down at the final day of the state track meet in Denver on Saturday. Meanwhile, a local high school unexpectedly won the 5A boys swimming title down in Colorado Springs. We had a reporter there, but no photographer (only art we got was team photo with medals). That ran inside on Page 2. With Fort Collins High (the focus in the horizontal cover) finishing in second place, Fossil Ridge (the swimming school) folks were upset to not be on the cover. And I get that, especially when down the rail on the cover we run a story about at 1A track title. But we had four people down at state track. We couldn't devote those resources and not blow the cover out big with track. Can't make everyone happy.

 

[MNgremlin]

Plus, we went all-out with prep track in print this weekend. Like I said, we don't do a lot of gamers during the regular season, then go all out for state and what we get are thank-you calls rather than complaints.

That's actually an interesting way to approach it. However, it's easy to do that in a city like Fort Collins, with both a Division I program and the high likelihood a number of teams/athletes will be at state tournaments.

Those of us at smaller dailies don't have quite the same ability, because a number of kids/teams are unlikely to make it to state and there's not a Division I program to fill the pages with local content.

 

[Fredrick]

MLive's approach to high schools is a great example of why newspapers are dead, buried, irrelevant, fill in the blank.

 

[jr/shotglass]

Matt, I've got to agree that was a damn nice print treatment of state track. Big-time.

We've taken to live blogging in the comments section of an online story at events like this, too. It's a huge boon for online coverage. You can provide the news instanteously.

 

[jfs1000]

Everyone wants more local high school sports coverage until their kid graduates. If you are a paper with a regional bent -- 20 plus towns -- I find high school sports problematic. The problem is many of the people who are die-hard high school sports readers leave that section when their kid stops playing. Day-to-day game coverage to me is asinine. Write features, issues, and when the major game comes up -- cover it.

Same is true for local news. If you are a 20 town paper, you can't fill your section with mundane coverage in town. Feature and run-of-the-mill town stories are relevant to only those in town or who have a connection unless it's a real good story. Most basic news -- town meetings and government -- is irrelevant to the next town. That's the theory behind zoning editions, but that's a cost-cutting move that made sense on a balance sheet.

If you have a major regional team -- pro and major college -- go with that. Best bang for your buck.

Corporate managers went with the local, local, local coverage because I think they thought it would be cheaper. No. To do local right costs so much more and takes so many more resources.

 

[FileNotFound]

Corporate managers went with the local, local, local coverage because I think they thought it would be cheaper. No. To do local right costs so much more and takes so many more resources.

You hit this square. Local also doesn't "scale," which media companies are starting to learn the hard way.

 

[Ace]

Everyone wants more local high school sports coverage until their kid graduates. If you are a paper with a regional bent -- 20 plus towns -- I find high school sports problematic. The problem is many of the people who are die-hard high school sports readers leave that section when their kid stops playing. Day-to-day game coverage to me is asinine. Write features, issues, and when the major game comes up -- cover it.

Same is true for local news. If you are a 20 town paper, you can't fill your section with mundane coverage in town. Feature and run-of-the-mill town stories are relevant to only those in town or who have a connection unless it's a real good story. Most basic news -- town meetings and government -- is irrelevant to the next town. That's the theory behind zoning editions, but that's a cost-cutting move that made sense on a balance sheet.

If you have a major regional team -- pro and major college -- go with that. Best bang for your buck.

Corporate managers went with the local, local, local coverage because I think they thought it would be cheaper. No. To do local right costs so much more and takes so many more resources.

It depends on the area. Some places high school sports are a big social event for the entire town. And they want to know how the teams are doing. (At least for basketball and football -- folks may not care so much about track or field hockey).

And some big private schools have alums who follow those teams forever.

But other schools once the kids leave, the parents stop caring.

 

[Dick Whitman]

It depends on the area. Some places high school sports are a big social event for the entire town. And they want to know how the teams are doing. (At least for basketball and football -- folks may not care so much about track or field hockey).

Someone needs to figure this out once and for all.

I wonder how accurately high schools tabulate and then maintain, for example, attendance figures.

 

[Ace]

Someone needs to figure this out once and for all.

I wonder how accurately high schools tabulate and then maintain, for example, attendance figures.

For purposes of readership, I don't know that attendance matters so much, but it's probably a good barometer. High school coverage also may drive web traffic from people who moved away but want to keep up.

I do think if you have standout teams or athletes it helps increase readership.

 

[spikechiquet]

My buddy is a varsity coach in a "MLive area" and he was a former SE of a few newspapers. His team's under-.500 season is very well documented. He did it very fair, but every game got "covered" with a well-written, unbiased 300-400 words.