OK, the headline is hyperbole. But I think one of the things people will miss most if newspapers slip into oblivion in the next decade or so is the coverage of local and professional sports.
In addition to local breaking news, the Flint Journal has always excelled (in my humble opinion) in covering high school, college and professional sports. As a former part-time sports writer at the Lansing State Journal during my college career, I can tell you that high school sports nights are a high energy production at any daily newspaper.
During the high school football season, all's quiet until about 9:30 - 9:45 p.m. and that's when the calls start trickling in as games end. The trickle turns to a flood and any young reporter can learn a lot about deadline reporting and speed when you only have three to five minutes to summarize a whole game.
Oh, and it better be right because a couple thousand people who witnessed the event will read your account in the morning paper and let you know if you got it wrong. Not to mention trying to get stats out of a losing coach who would rather be having a root canal than talking to you.
So what will happen to that kind of coverage as newspapers shrink or, heaven forbid, disappear altogether. Like breaking news and court coverage, I think a lot of folks will miss it a lot.
Guys like Len Hoyes, Dean Howe, Doug Mintline, etc. were household names in the community and their loss was already being felt when the current downturn came. News reporters might consider the sports department the toy department, but a lot of people, more than many news reporters like me ever dared to admit, buy the paper primarily for sports.
Tom Kowalski, a former colleague from the Oakland Press, has spent nearly all of his career covering the Detroit Lions (he ought to get extra pay just for that) but he knows that team as well as anyone, including the folks at the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News. He's also a pretty nice guy.
So for the folks who are bailing on buying or subscribing to the newspaper, just try and think of where you will get the Saturday morning coverage of your Friday night football games.
Mark Cuban has weighed in on this issue as well: (Borrowed :) this from the Fading to Black site:
http://www.vator.tv/news/show/2009-01-25-why-pro-sports-need-newspapers
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7 comments:
Doug Mintline left The Journal more than 20 years ago.
I bought yesterday's paper and turned first to the sports as I always do. Everything was off the wires. No coverage of the local road running scene. What a sad peice of paper. I told hubby-no more Journals. I will go online to read the blogs. We were down to Sunday only and it's gone now.
Cuban, one of my favorite bloggers and people is right. Remember the strike during the Tiger's run during the 60's? I was hooked on sports news back then and was going nuts. At least we had decent radio chit chat then too. Even that is gone. Sigh. Fade to black.
Anonymous 17:03
Yes, I know Doug left 20 years ago, but many of the still faithful readers of the Journal still remember him fondly.
That was my point, the connection between the sports writers and the audience has been a very deep one.
Seems there's a lot of haters reading this blog eh?
Quit hating and start making the FJ better.
I remember the Doug Mintline logo that ran in the paper when I was a kid. I don't remember reading his stuff back in the day but I did read the book about him.
Sports wise I really miss Vern Plagenhoef. His baseball notes column in Sunday's Journal had stuff in it that you didn't see in SI. I just just googled Vern and see he was only 45 when he passed away. The same age I am now..
Keep up the good work Jim.
Dean Howe is everything that's wrong with sports journalism. And it is no surprise that most of the sports section is wire. It is like that on many days. The surprise is that no one in management seems to notice or care. Last I checked, the sports department was unscathed in both rounds of buyouts.
MANY YEARS AGO, I THINK ABOUT 1988, MY SON WHO WAS 16 YEARS OLD AND HIS FRIENDS TRAVELED UP NORTH TO PLAY IN THE GUS MACKER BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT. WELL, THE KIDS CAME IN SECOND IN THERE DIVISION, THEY CAME HOME WITH A BIG TROPHY AND WERE THRILLED WITH THERE PREFORMANCE. I THOUGHT IT WAS NEWS WORTHY AND CALLED THE FLINT JOURNAL TO INFORM THEM AND THEY SAID THEY COULDN'T USE IT BECAUSE THEY ONLY COVERED THE FIRST PLACE TEAM. THIS REALLY TURNED ME OFF ON THE FLINT JOURNAL'S SPORTS COVERAGE..
I used to do sports gathering for the San Antonio Express-News, working around 9 p.m.-1 a.m. during the high school football (HUGE in Texas) and basketball. The atmosphere Jim describes sounds very accurate.
Speaking of errors, it's always fun getting names of players in schools like Poth, Texas, an area with a heavy Polish population. Names like Wojciechowski, Dworaczyk, and Roszczewski are common.
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