Instead, do it better -- or someone else certainly will.
By Kevin Benz (more by author)Source: Poynter Online
Shane Moreland, of WTKR-TV in Norfolk, Va., is a friend of mine and one heck of a news director. He's also not the first friend of mine to drop sports from its daily slot in a television newscast; another friend, Mike George, did the same thing about seven years ago at KVBC in Las Vegas.
Shane and Mike reflect the frustrations of many news directors and general managers whose market research indicates that sports segments of local television newscasts rank near the bottom of reasons to watch. Considering the money it costs to produce local sports coverage, some stations simply don't think the investment makes sense anymore.
I have a ton of respect for Shane and Mike, who are excellent journalists. I just wonder whether they would have come to a different decision had they approached the issue from another direction. Rather than dumping the sports department, we should change our sports philosophy.
Read more here.
The PJR Reports last July devoted a story on sports writing. Click here to read the piece written by Don Gil K. Carreon and Jose Bimbo F. Santos.
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2 comments:
Hi Bryant,
The piece struck a chord because this is what we do in the local newspapers: Chronicle struggles and triumphs of athletes in our community. If you have time and if its not too much, I would like to consult you for the Master's Project I am planning to write about. Its focus would be why sports events backed by corporations are given more prominence than those of small but more important and prestigious grassroots-based events in national newspapers(e.g. PAL Interclub golf getting headline treatment over the Palarong Pambansa winners). It will be some sort of content analysis.
If its okay, please leave your number. Thanks.
Cedelf
Hi Cedelf,
You can contact me thru my gmail account (hbmacale) or ym (hbmacale). Then we can discuss this issue a bit more.
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