Buffalo News sports writer Tom Borrelli died last week from injuries sustained on Nov. 8 when he fell off the ladder leading to the press box at Buffalo's All High Stadium. He was covering a high school football game at the time. And high school football wasn't even Borrelli's main beat. He was a highly respected lacrosse writer. The National Lacrosse League even named its "Writer of the Year" award after him.
The story is at http://www.buffalonews.com/home/story/499559.html
Those of us who are old enough to have covered Texas high school football in the late '70s, early '80s, probably remember the type...it's like the ladder to the top of an RV. The stands don't go all the way up to provide access to the press box, so you have to climb the ladder to get there. Perhaps some really small schools still have this. The worst I've seen recently was at Class 1A Blue Ridge High School, where a metal staircase led to the press box.
The weird thing about Borrelli's death: The stadium was renovated in 2007, but a new press box was not installed for budgetary reasons. How different from Texas, where a new press box is among the priorities, so the superintendent and school board can have a suite to entertain VIPs, and so scouts can have more room.
Feel very lucky that most of these new/renovated high school stadiums are solidly built structures, with elevators, electrical outlets for laptops (most places), free food and drink, etc. Even those that don't have elevators have easy access to the press box from the grandstands.
So don't complain when you're shunted off into a small little corner of the press box; or when Coppell makes you go to the auxiliary press box on the visitor's side because the main box is used for entertaining; or when you have to pay for your food at Texas Stadium during playoff time; or when a 3A press box isn't air conditioned, or even has windows.
Those are minor inconveniences.
Showing posts with label Media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Media. Show all posts
Monday, November 24, 2008
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Fairness is the marketplace
Talk is rampant that the new Congress and president will try to reinstate the "Fairness Doctrine," which would force radio and TV stations with federal licenses to give equal time to all candidates/all sides of an issue.
Many believe that this is an attempt to silence conservative talk radio, and it probably is. If a station carries Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, etc., it may also have to carry an equal amount of liberal programming.
I listen to Rush and Sean -- and watch Keith Olbermann -- purely for comedic purposes. But face the facts: The conservatives draw ratings, and therefore advertisers. Liberal talkers don't draw ratings. Air America went into bankruptcy, lost most of its best talent and is a blip on the Arbitron screen.
A revived Fairness Doctrine may placate those who don't have the thick skin to take the childish rants of conservatives who think that those who oppose their views are anti-American or idiots. But it would destroy many top-rated radio stations.
If liberal talkers want to be heard, find a way to get ratings.
Many believe that this is an attempt to silence conservative talk radio, and it probably is. If a station carries Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, etc., it may also have to carry an equal amount of liberal programming.
I listen to Rush and Sean -- and watch Keith Olbermann -- purely for comedic purposes. But face the facts: The conservatives draw ratings, and therefore advertisers. Liberal talkers don't draw ratings. Air America went into bankruptcy, lost most of its best talent and is a blip on the Arbitron screen.
A revived Fairness Doctrine may placate those who don't have the thick skin to take the childish rants of conservatives who think that those who oppose their views are anti-American or idiots. But it would destroy many top-rated radio stations.
If liberal talkers want to be heard, find a way to get ratings.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Another few bite the dust
People Newspapers in the Dallas area yesterday closed three of its six newspapers and laid off a bunch of people -- including two friends with whom I had previously worked. This group is owned by D Magazine (the local city magazine), which also experienced its own reduction in force, and remaining staffers took a pay cut.
One of those laid-off friends had the right attitude. She said this was a good thing for her, and she walked out feeling confident. She was re-thinking her desire to be in the newspaper industry, anyway.
Though these few layoffs don't approach what Citigroup said it would do yesterday -- 53,000 more job cuts -- or the carnage expected at NASCAR this week -- possibly 1,500 losing their jobs because of sponsorship woes, team mergers, etc. -- the People Newspapers cuts are more slices in the industry that I've been a part of since high school.
I know that People publisher Jason Heid, with whom I worked and whose rise makes me very proud, must be heartbroken about having to lay off these people and close newspapers that he helped build. His papers were well-reported and well-written, beautifully designed and had excellent photography. They also paid a lot more than the average community newspaper, which is one reason they attracted many reporters from my old company.
Multiple sources said, however, that the layoffs might not have been handled so well. One account was that people were packing up and leaving last week, without remaining staff being told what was going on. The Dallas Morning News reported that the D/People blogs were taken down through late Monday because comments were posted about who was getting the boot before the staff was even told.
It's getting bad out there folks. A former TV reporter told me yesterday that news directors are looking only for people who look presentable on television and will work on the cheap -- journalism experience be damned.
But, as I said in a previous post, we're not dead yet. My wife's boss, the great John Salustri, real estate editorial director for Incisive Media, told her that newspapers will be greatly changed when they find their new footing. Whether that's for the good or the bad remains to be seen.
Amen, John.
One of those laid-off friends had the right attitude. She said this was a good thing for her, and she walked out feeling confident. She was re-thinking her desire to be in the newspaper industry, anyway.
Though these few layoffs don't approach what Citigroup said it would do yesterday -- 53,000 more job cuts -- or the carnage expected at NASCAR this week -- possibly 1,500 losing their jobs because of sponsorship woes, team mergers, etc. -- the People Newspapers cuts are more slices in the industry that I've been a part of since high school.
I know that People publisher Jason Heid, with whom I worked and whose rise makes me very proud, must be heartbroken about having to lay off these people and close newspapers that he helped build. His papers were well-reported and well-written, beautifully designed and had excellent photography. They also paid a lot more than the average community newspaper, which is one reason they attracted many reporters from my old company.
Multiple sources said, however, that the layoffs might not have been handled so well. One account was that people were packing up and leaving last week, without remaining staff being told what was going on. The Dallas Morning News reported that the D/People blogs were taken down through late Monday because comments were posted about who was getting the boot before the staff was even told.
It's getting bad out there folks. A former TV reporter told me yesterday that news directors are looking only for people who look presentable on television and will work on the cheap -- journalism experience be damned.
But, as I said in a previous post, we're not dead yet. My wife's boss, the great John Salustri, real estate editorial director for Incisive Media, told her that newspapers will be greatly changed when they find their new footing. Whether that's for the good or the bad remains to be seen.
Amen, John.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
We're not dead yet
A couple of weeks ago, my former company began running display ads in the middle of the front page, above the fold.
No, these weren't "banner" ads at the bottom of 1A that we lived with, reluctantly, for six years prior...even when house ads ran in those spots to basically yell out to the business community, "This space is for sale."
These were ads that affected the presentation of the top news of the day/week. How can you run a dominant photo, the lead story and a secondary story above the fold when you have you have about 24 column inches of space between the top of the ads and the bottom of the nameplate?
Good thing I was gone at the time. I'm sure my ex-bosses and friends in ad management were, too. They had extensive experience with my rants about advertising encroaching on editorial credibility, and those would have been tame in comparison to my lecture about the floating front page ads.
It's all about the money. The newspaper industry is in deep trouble...probably more trouble than the auto industry and AIG, and just less than the credit markets and small banks. Simply put, readers -- especially young readers -- get their news from the Internet, talk radio and CNN/Fox News/MSNBC. Not to mention The Daily Show and The Colbert Report (That's col-BEAR re-POR).
That means advertisers are leaving newspapers because of their own economic misery and because the falling readership. Shareholders or private investors call the shots, meaning journalistic integrity is the least if their priorities.
So, newspaper companies large and small are laying off hundreds. Some media companies such as Gatehouse Media, the Journal-Register Company and American Community Newspapers (my old stomping ground) have de-listed their stock. In my former company's case, the de-listing came about 16 months after we went public.
(By the way, they treated me very well during my tenure there, we had a very friendly parting, and I still cover high school sports for them. So I'm not trying to knock them.)
The Christian Science Monitor recently announced it would end its print edition and concentrate on the Web. Another paper in Madison, Wis. is now focusing its daily efforts online, while putting out a weekly publication.
The problem is, readers are turning to the Web, but newspapers do not know how to adapt to it or how to monetize it. Many journalists -- especially community, weekly journalists -- are so embedded in the weekly deadline/who cares if we're an hour late to press mentality, that the daily/get it up now paradigm is completely foreign.
Some of my ex-coworkers had to be told time and time again that we needed their council story right after the meeting Monday night so we could post it online. They were so set in their ways that they still didn't write it until Wednesday for the Thursday paper.
Still, no one has found the holy grail of transferring print ad revenue to Web as revenue. Many have tried, many have failed. Unless you simply put the print product up as a PDF, we still don't know the online equivalent of a full- or half-page ad -- without being annoying as a pop-up or pop-under ad (which in themselves are sabotaged by pop-up blockers).
If you're reading a story online, you have to actively click on a banner ad to get the full ad. In a newspaper, you're reading the Page One jumps, and you see the full-page ad right next to them. It's a passive view.
And the 2x2 ad on the side of the Web site costs less than the 2x2 inside a paper.
Newspapers must change their methods if they are to succeed in any form. For example:
*Make the investment in journalism. Small, community papers expect excellence for the cost of crap, and because of pride of craft, get mediocrity. They pay the same as seven years ago, but then it was paying for mediocrity and getting excellence. The investors don't like that investment because it will take a couple of years to really see the results.
*Realize the news is the product. We've seen sections and features taken away from top-notch papers -- The Dallas Morning News had excellent religion, science and health sections, but they've been minimized and absorbed into other sections. The size of the actual newsprint has shrunk (I won't bore you with technical terms, but today's page is roughly 2 inches narrower than it was a couple of years ago). Today's newspaper office more resembles a direct-sales call center than the creative tension of the "All the President's Men" Washington Post.
*Find the Web answer. Newsroom folks are being asked to do more and more to pump up the Web product. Editor & Publisher recently compiled a mobile news setup that included laptop, digital camera, digital video camera, iPhone and, oh yeah, notebooks and pens. I suggested at my company that all future photography hire be videographers. So now the executive office and the ad staff have to find the way to monetize the Web.
Nobody's found it yet. If I knew, I'd be a publisher right now.
No, these weren't "banner" ads at the bottom of 1A that we lived with, reluctantly, for six years prior...even when house ads ran in those spots to basically yell out to the business community, "This space is for sale."
These were ads that affected the presentation of the top news of the day/week. How can you run a dominant photo, the lead story and a secondary story above the fold when you have you have about 24 column inches of space between the top of the ads and the bottom of the nameplate?
Good thing I was gone at the time. I'm sure my ex-bosses and friends in ad management were, too. They had extensive experience with my rants about advertising encroaching on editorial credibility, and those would have been tame in comparison to my lecture about the floating front page ads.
It's all about the money. The newspaper industry is in deep trouble...probably more trouble than the auto industry and AIG, and just less than the credit markets and small banks. Simply put, readers -- especially young readers -- get their news from the Internet, talk radio and CNN/Fox News/MSNBC. Not to mention The Daily Show and The Colbert Report (That's col-BEAR re-POR).
That means advertisers are leaving newspapers because of their own economic misery and because the falling readership. Shareholders or private investors call the shots, meaning journalistic integrity is the least if their priorities.
So, newspaper companies large and small are laying off hundreds. Some media companies such as Gatehouse Media, the Journal-Register Company and American Community Newspapers (my old stomping ground) have de-listed their stock. In my former company's case, the de-listing came about 16 months after we went public.
(By the way, they treated me very well during my tenure there, we had a very friendly parting, and I still cover high school sports for them. So I'm not trying to knock them.)
The Christian Science Monitor recently announced it would end its print edition and concentrate on the Web. Another paper in Madison, Wis. is now focusing its daily efforts online, while putting out a weekly publication.
The problem is, readers are turning to the Web, but newspapers do not know how to adapt to it or how to monetize it. Many journalists -- especially community, weekly journalists -- are so embedded in the weekly deadline/who cares if we're an hour late to press mentality, that the daily/get it up now paradigm is completely foreign.
Some of my ex-coworkers had to be told time and time again that we needed their council story right after the meeting Monday night so we could post it online. They were so set in their ways that they still didn't write it until Wednesday for the Thursday paper.
Still, no one has found the holy grail of transferring print ad revenue to Web as revenue. Many have tried, many have failed. Unless you simply put the print product up as a PDF, we still don't know the online equivalent of a full- or half-page ad -- without being annoying as a pop-up or pop-under ad (which in themselves are sabotaged by pop-up blockers).
If you're reading a story online, you have to actively click on a banner ad to get the full ad. In a newspaper, you're reading the Page One jumps, and you see the full-page ad right next to them. It's a passive view.
And the 2x2 ad on the side of the Web site costs less than the 2x2 inside a paper.
Newspapers must change their methods if they are to succeed in any form. For example:
*Make the investment in journalism. Small, community papers expect excellence for the cost of crap, and because of pride of craft, get mediocrity. They pay the same as seven years ago, but then it was paying for mediocrity and getting excellence. The investors don't like that investment because it will take a couple of years to really see the results.
*Realize the news is the product. We've seen sections and features taken away from top-notch papers -- The Dallas Morning News had excellent religion, science and health sections, but they've been minimized and absorbed into other sections. The size of the actual newsprint has shrunk (I won't bore you with technical terms, but today's page is roughly 2 inches narrower than it was a couple of years ago). Today's newspaper office more resembles a direct-sales call center than the creative tension of the "All the President's Men" Washington Post.
*Find the Web answer. Newsroom folks are being asked to do more and more to pump up the Web product. Editor & Publisher recently compiled a mobile news setup that included laptop, digital camera, digital video camera, iPhone and, oh yeah, notebooks and pens. I suggested at my company that all future photography hire be videographers. So now the executive office and the ad staff have to find the way to monetize the Web.
Nobody's found it yet. If I knew, I'd be a publisher right now.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
