Orlando

[Moderator1]

The pipeline has been gurgling all day - do pipelines gurgle? - and I've heard this enough from enough people I trust to believe it. Something about freelance work and questions about whether it was authorized or a conflict of interest. What has been described to me does NOT sound like an offense worthy of a dismissal and several have speculated that somebody may have been looking for a reason. Let me make clear that last part is speculation. What I do know: He no longer works there and questions over some freelance work are the given reason why.

I'm also told he was interviewing elsewhere earlier this week. He won't be idle long.

 

[2muchcoffeeman]

I read nearly all of them, so I speak from experience on this front. Steve Elling is one of the best 3-4 golf beat writers at any paper in the country. Period. Aside from being a top-notch writer who would be a great columnist at any paper, the guy was plugged in so well on the golf scene in what is the professional hub of golf in the U.S., it was ridiculous.

And good luck to his replacement, who will have to start from ground zero with Isleworth resident Tiger -- never an easy thing for any writer to deal with.

He's good ... damn good. But don't get carried away. He wasn't breaking anything on Tiger that already wasn't on AP.
And explain to me what exactly makes Orlando the hub of professional golf in the U.S.

Let's see:
USGA headquarters, New Jersey.
PGA of America HQ, Palm Beach Gardens
PGA Tour HQ, World Golf Hall of Fame, Jacksonville-St. Augustine area
LPGA HQ, Daytona Beach
Augusta National, well, Augusta, Ga.
Royal and Ancient Golf Club, Scotland
Orlando? Some Tour guys live there for the Florida tax break. And the big guy, one Eldrick Woods, is moving to south Florida (Jupiter) in the near future.

Thing is, you can't spin around twice blindfolded in Central Florida without stumbling over a golf course. Thanks to the reader interest level and number of pros living in the area, there's going to be a lot of golf news in the Orlando paper. The Sentinel does a better job with it than the Jacksonville paper, which has the PGA Tour HQ in its suburbs.

 

[2muchcoffeeman]

I would love to know what this thread is about.

Lynn Hoppes got promoted and Steve Elling doesn't work in Orlando any more.
At least, that's what it was about when I started it. Where it has gone since then, I have no freaking idea.

I think some people are feeling upset that somebody from Orlando won "their" award and are taking the opportunity to diss the Sentinel in order to vent their displeasure.

 

[spaceman]

I think APSE is the very worst thing to happen to sports journalism in my lifetime. This obsession with awards, especially section awards, has resulted in a culture of mimicry that has robbed many sports sections of their individuality and regional quirks. We have become lemming-like clones that format ourselves into sterility. We have taken something completely unpredictable -- the day's news -- and hammered it into a blandness by squeezing news into formatted holes and building around features that lack urgency. And we wonder why readers find us boring.

Amen, brother

 

[Mizzougrad96]

Elling definitely won't be jobless for long...

 

[Mizzougrad96]

No paper in the country is as obsessed with the APSEs as Orlando.

People can see that as good and bad, but it's the biggest reason why the staff gets picked over several times a year. Nothing wrong with a paper that brings a ****load of attention to its writers.

 

[2muchcoffeeman]

and why belittle the awards? aren't they chosen by diligent thoughtful people? and don't they reward a high standard of journalism? sure, you can quibble about what is great, good and mediocre, but they get it right most of the time

Because they are useless to our mission of attracting readers, but we overemphasize them because, in absence of increased sales, which we seem to find impossible to accomplish, awards have become our tangible measure of success because we know how to win them. When APSE broke it down to four circulation brackets, I knew things were only going to get worse. In the largest bracket, roughly 50 percent of the papers will win a section award. This is becoming like the Special Olympics, a medal for everyone! Maybe if we ceased this annual exercise in patting ourselves on the back, we could focus on attracting readers.

It seems to me that good solid writing about interesting subjects --- the kind of thing that, y'know, wins awards --- will attract the kind of readers we'd want to brag about attracting.

Award-winning writing should attract readers almost by default.

 

[Birdscribe]

I read nearly all of them, so I speak from experience on this front. Steve Elling is one of the best 3-4 golf beat writers at any paper in the country. Period. Aside from being a top-notch writer who would be a great columnist at any paper, the guy was plugged in so well on the golf scene in what is the professional hub of golf in the U.S., it was ridiculous.

And good luck to his replacement, who will have to start from ground zero with Isleworth resident Tiger -- never an easy thing for any writer to deal with.

He's good ... damn good. But don't get carried away. He wasn't breaking anything on Tiger that already wasn't on AP.
And explain to me what exactly makes Orlando the hub of professional golf in the U.S.

Let's see:
USGA headquarters, New Jersey.
PGA of America HQ, Palm Beach Gardens
PGA Tour HQ, World Golf Hall of Fame, Jacksonville-St. Augustine area
LPGA HQ, Daytona Beach
Augusta National, well, Augusta, Ga.
Royal and Ancient Golf Club, Scotland
Orlando? Some Tour guys live there for the Florida tax break. And the big guy, one Eldrick Woods, is moving to south Florida (Jupiter) in the near future.

Thing is, you can't spin around twice blindfolded in Central Florida without stumbling over a golf course. Thanks to the reader interest level and number of pros living in the area, there's going to be a lot of golf news in the Orlando paper. The Sentinel does a better job with it than the Jacksonville paper, which has the PGA Tour HQ in its suburbs.

It's not a matter of "breaking" stuff on Tiger. It's a matter of comfort level.

Tiger has a certain comfort level with several writers, Steve Elling being one of those.

C'mon Hondo, you know that more than "some golfers" live in the Orlando-Isleworth-Lake Nona area. Elling did a story about this a couple years ago, pointing out where most of the tour pros live. There were more than "some."

Not to mention there are two PGA tournaments, one LPGA event, a silly-season event every year and Q School finals there every other year. Not to mention the flotilla of other events in Florida that you're centrally located to -- many of which you're expected to cover. And of course, there are the majors, three of which Elling covered every year (like a lot of golf writers).

As for the various HQs, that all fell under his domain as well, since Orlando is only a few hours from the PGA Tour, LPGA and PGA of America HQs. He was expected to keep up on those happenings as well.

Golf at the Sentinel is a major beat and Elling did a great job on it.

 

[spwritenj]

there is NO WAY steve should have been fired. this is a beat where you could have a garage filled with free taylor-made clubs, where you could spend each week setting up complimentary rounds at the country club of your choice, and steve was unfailingly honest and hardworking, always one of the first people at the course and the last to leave. this is an embarrassment for the sentinel. i can't wait until he lands on his feet and makes them look bad in his new job.

 

[miamiheraldchick]

I've always heard that Elling is quite good but also a little hard-edged to deal with. Could that be part of the back story?

 

[henryhenry]

frank, you're posing an either/or situation
it's a false choice
you can do breaking news and long-range enterprise and they should co-exist peacefully, each enhancing the other

But it rarely works that way. Nowadays the centerpiece is unlikely to be breaking news. The news gets shoved into a corner. This is the tail wagging the dog.

and why belittle the awards? aren't they chosen by diligent thoughtful people? and don't they reward a high standard of journalism? sure, you can quibble about what is great, good and mediocre, but they get it right most of the time

Because they are useless to our mission of attracting readers, but we overemphasize them because, in absence of increased sales, which we seem to find impossible to accomplish, awards have become our tangible measure of success because we know how to win them. When APSE broke it down to four circulation brackets, I knew things were only going to get worse. In the largest bracket, roughly 50 percent of the papers will win a section award. This is becoming like the Special Olympics, a medal for everyone! Maybe if we ceased this annual exercise in patting ourselves on the back, we could focus on attracting readers.

My comments were in response to Editude's claim that Orlando has been fixated on awards. I don't know if that's true in Orlando, but it is true a lot of places.

In a previous job I was the Sunday SE and I made some big changes. A key figure in APSE, a guy I've known for 25 years now, told me that these changes would hurt us in the contest. As it turned out, we still made Top 20, but my response to him was, "I do not care about the contest. We are in a competitive situation here, and I care about having a section that is more useful to readers than the other paper's is."

i'm confused. why would apse reward sections that don't appeal to readers? you make it sound like apse is out of touch and self-destructive.

 

[pallister]

I think APSE is the very worst thing to happen to sports journalism in my lifetime. This obsession with awards, especially section awards, has resulted in a culture of mimicry that has robbed many sports sections of their individuality and regional quirks. We have become lemming-like clones that format ourselves into sterility. We have taken something completely unpredictable -- the day's news -- and hammered it into a blandness by squeezing news into formatted holes and building around features that lack urgency. And we wonder why readers find us boring.

That is the best paragraph I've ever read on this site. Dead on.

 

[SouthernBelle]

From my experience when I've been down to Florida:

1. Orlando Sentinel has no real sports presence outside the Magic. and so maybe that paper pushes too hard to be a "player" on the national scene.

2. Steve Elling is a wonderful golf writer, so whatever has happened, he's got that going for him. I know he'll do fine wherever he lands next.

3. I agree with the post that says Orlando pushes too hard for awards, just like St. Pete and Tampa do. Nothing wrong with being a one-sports town, or two or whatever, but recognize your place in this sports world, please.

4. That said, Orlando has a very nice paper, and very entertaining to read, front to back. I always like to pick it up when I'm in Florida.

5. Finally, who cares about awards, except for imbecile bragging rights that readers don't care about? I'd rather open up a lively, entertaining paper every morning than keep score about what paper/writer/columnist/special section has been judged to be in the top 10 or whatever by a panel of..........newspaper people!!! i'd rather see the voting done by a panel of the readers, myself. writers vote on baseball players, so why can't the real readers vote on the best papers?

6. Orlando still has the most interesting, and entertaining, paper I've come across. There is a lot to be said for that. It's always fun to open it up and see what's inside, and does your own paper do that?

 

[Columbo]

I read nearly all of them, so I speak from experience on this front. Steve Elling is one of the best 3-4 golf beat writers at any paper in the country. Period. Aside from being a top-notch writer who would be a great columnist at any paper, the guy was plugged in so well on the golf scene in what is the professional hub of golf in the U.S., it was ridiculous.

And good luck to his replacement, who will have to start from ground zero with Isleworth resident Tiger -- never an easy thing for any writer to deal with.

He's good ... damn good. But don't get carried away. He wasn't breaking anything on Tiger that already wasn't on AP.
And explain to me what exactly makes Orlando the hub of professional golf in the U.S.

Let's see:
USGA headquarters, New Jersey.
PGA of America HQ, Palm Beach Gardens
PGA Tour HQ, World Golf Hall of Fame, Jacksonville-St. Augustine area
LPGA HQ, Daytona Beach
Augusta National, well, Augusta, Ga.
Royal and Ancient Golf Club, Scotland
Orlando? Some Tour guys live there for the Florida tax break. And the big guy, one Eldrick Woods, is moving to south Florida (Jupiter) in the near future.

Thing is, you can't spin around twice blindfolded in Central Florida without stumbling over a golf course. Thanks to the reader interest level and number of pros living in the area, there's going to be a lot of golf news in the Orlando paper. The Sentinel does a better job with it than the Jacksonville paper, which has the PGA Tour HQ in its suburbs.

Golf at the Sentinel is a major beatvacation and Elling did a great job on it.

Puhhhhlease.

It's golf.

Events are over when the sun goes down for chrissakes... there is never a coaching search... and the demographic (other than John Daly) doesn't require getting your ass yanked out of bed to track down a police report on one of the stars.

What. A. Life.

And, yes, I'm ****ing jealous. It's so stipulated.

To have yearlong vacation after yearlong vacation in beautiful locations.

If one isn't jealous, check the pulse.

 

[Ike Broflovski]

This is like being in a bar and trying to listen to three conversations at the same time.

 

[Football_Bat]

The more I read these threads, the more I think Orlando is simply Roswell writ large.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

To say the Sentinel has no sports presence other than the Magic is ****ing absurd. Their college coverage is among the best in the nation, with writers in Tallahassee and Gainesville. Also, their NASCAR coverage is also among the best in the country because of Ed Hinton and they have NFL writers in Jacksonville and Tampa and both Chris Harry and Alan Schmadke are top notch...

 

[boots]

This is like being in a bar and trying to listen to three conversations at the same time.

That means that you're paying attention to conversations that don't concern you. STOP THAT AND ENJOY YOUR DRINK!

 

[dooley_womack1]

Speaking of the Boots pipeline, anything going on at the Hershey paper?

Anyhoo, journalism in search of awards can be counterproductive, if you're emphasizing offbeat stuff to the detriment of the major coverage areas or not being flexible about playing up hard news, or if you emphasize writers who are wordsmith friendly instead of reader friendly.

And one point I wondered about the Vanifesto, the part about never using file art except for mug shots: How the hell do you do the DiMaggio obit justice? Sneak someone into the funeral home to get fresh art of the corpse?

 

[hondo]

I read nearly all of them, so I speak from experience on this front. Steve Elling is one of the best 3-4 golf beat writers at any paper in the country. Period. Aside from being a top-notch writer who would be a great columnist at any paper, the guy was plugged in so well on the golf scene in what is the professional hub of golf in the U.S., it was ridiculous.

And good luck to his replacement, who will have to start from ground zero with Isleworth resident Tiger -- never an easy thing for any writer to deal with.

He's good ... damn good. But don't get carried away. He wasn't breaking anything on Tiger that already wasn't on AP.
And explain to me what exactly makes Orlando the hub of professional golf in the U.S.

Let's see:
USGA headquarters, New Jersey.
PGA of America HQ, Palm Beach Gardens
PGA Tour HQ, World Golf Hall of Fame, Jacksonville-St. Augustine area
LPGA HQ, Daytona Beach
Augusta National, well, Augusta, Ga.
Royal and Ancient Golf Club, Scotland
Orlando? Some Tour guys live there for the Florida tax break. And the big guy, one Eldrick Woods, is moving to south Florida (Jupiter) in the near future.

Thing is, you can't spin around twice blindfolded in Central Florida without stumbling over a golf course. Thanks to the reader interest level and number of pros living in the area, there's going to be a lot of golf news in the Orlando paper. The Sentinel does a better job with it than the Jacksonville paper, which has the PGA Tour HQ in its suburbs.

It's not a matter of "breaking" stuff on Tiger. It's a matter of comfort level.

Tiger has a certain comfort level with several writers, Steve Elling being one of those.

C'mon Hondo, you know that more than "some golfers" live in the Orlando-Isleworth-Lake Nona area. Elling did a story about this a couple years ago, pointing out where most of the tour pros live. There were more than "some."

Not to mention there are two PGA tournaments, one LPGA event, a silly-season event every year and Q School finals there every other year. Not to mention the flotilla of other events in Florida that you're centrally located to -- many of which you're expected to cover. And of course, there are the majors, three of which Elling covered every year (like a lot of golf writers).

As for the various HQs, that all fell under his domain as well, since Orlando is only a few hours from the PGA Tour, LPGA and PGA of America HQs. He was expected to keep up on those happenings as well.

Golf at the Sentinel is a major beat and Elling did a great job on it.

I'll grant you a lot of that. But what happens when Tiger pulls the trigger and moves to Jupiter. He owns the property. It's just a matter of him tearing down the old house and building the new one? Els also is spending more of his down time in London than Lake Nona these days.

Word is, Tiger is out of Mouse Town within a year. Wonder if that changes the beat at all, because I think Elling got a lot of travel because of Eldrick living there.