Baseball Question for Charlotte Observer readers?

CO coverage or lack of.....

I find it hard to believe that the lack of coverage is due to not enough man power at the observer. Im a coach of a J.V high school program and scores are sent in every night after games by myself and the varsity coach and we cant even get as much as a box score entered on most nights. So when information is given that could be copy and pasted into an article, I find it hard to believe that man power is the issue.....Also, a players parents wrote an e-mail to one of the sports writers at the observer; I wont state his name, and asked why Lake Norman Baseball could'nt get any coverage or atleast box scores in the paper, the reporter wrote back and his only response was that the Mooresville Tribune didnt cover any Charlotte teams so why should CO cover Lake Norman?????How ever, like stated in earlier post basketball received coverage and if my memory serves me well, Lake Norman won The State Championship. I lost alot of respect for this reporter after hearing of that statement, so much for being in a customer service profession.

 

A thought about coverage

I would like to see more local coverage of baseball, too....lots more. Local media may judge the interest in HS baseball along the line of attendance. Compare attendance at HS and college football and basketball versus HS and college baseball. Football and basketball draw fans and baseball (even premier programs) only draw a handful of fans comparitively. Maybe the Observer thinks there is only marginal interest in baseball and that justifies minimal coverage.

Local TV media cover HS sports some and have dedicated Friday night HS football wrapup shows, but no interest in baseball whatsoever.

That doesn't mean I wouldn't like to see more baseball coverage...I surely would, but I see how the paper may have other priorities based on who they think have certain interests.

 

Union Enquirer htp

The Union Enquirer does a pretty good job down here south of Charlotte with baseball.
They really cover all of the high school athletics in UC - male and female -the way the Charlotte News did in Charlotte - in the 70s.

They aren't much on stats or standings - and generally only "feature" one game with more than a paragraph - on a day that is loaded up with games.

It's better than nothing -

They also do a good job when kids commit - usually a personal deeper story with some real info on what the kids have overcome to reach that level.

i don't even look in the CO for scores -
Outside the UE -TBR baseball - IS my sports page

 

Everyone should know by now. The charlotte observer covers AK and Prov only.

 

Local Weeklys

The Lake Norman Citizen and Huntersville Herald are weekly papers that do a good job of covering the local North Meck area teams, including the new I-Meck conference. They are both online and can be easily found on google. New issues are printed every Thurs/Friday. Much more information that the big O can spare.

 

Observer

Last year, I suggested to Cliff that the Observer should ask high school newspaper sports reporters to write briefs/articles to be submitted to the Observer. I thought this would benefit both the young reporters and the Observer. I guess someone at the Observer didn't like the idea. I do know that Stan Olson was laid off by the Observer after football season.
Even though South Charlotte Sports Report doesn't cover sports at all high schools, I do check out their newspaper (great photos from the EM-AK game Friday night). Charlotte Weekly covers sports but, like SCSP, only in a certain area unless you collect editions from all over the city.

 

It IS frustrating, that's for sure. I called the Observer to report our score on Thursday night and no one answered the phone! This is why I type out articles for all our games on our website (the Knight Report on www.ccvikingsbaseball.com) and why I update our site with information concerning league games and standings......no one else seems to know the SPC even exists!
Thanks go to all you out there that try to promote high school baseball in this area!

 

Coach Knight

I am going to count on you to make sure you get me the names of the top kids in your conference for my Battle of the Border Showcase All Star Games in June. The kid you sent me last year was a fantastic baseball player

I will be sending you nomination information this week

 

We've had both Langston Wertz and Cliff Mehrtens on this board to comment about their lack of coverage of spring sports.

It's the same answer: 106 schools to cover, not enough manpower, not enough money, etc--all very good reasons. Yet, other cites of Charlotte's size are able to do it.

For the first time after 8 years inquiring about this, I really do believe it's about the money. The newspaper business is in huge trouble financially. The small local papers have a much better chance of surviving. Financially speaking, there is a small clique of interest in Preps sports---spring sports even less. I asked Langston one time if I was able to generate more ad sponsors for HS sports would the CO develop more resources to Preps---he said yes.

They have a true belief they are a regional paper not a Charlotte paper. They feel they represent those 106 HS's in their coverage and they have limited space, so they look for human interest stories vs hard core information.

They will never be able to satisfy us, but their lack of interest has helped the community papers and places like TBR.

I have no idea what Tripp Roakes future plans are with South Charlotte Sports, but if he changed the name and expanded his covering area, he could easily fill this void. For those that have never seen his paper, it's very impressive.

 

Newspapers are all some version of an aging concept. They are under tremendous financial pressure due to the Internet, changing consumption habits of newsreaders, reduced advertising revenues, and rising costs. It's not a pretty picture and numerous newspaper operations have ceased operations in the past two years. The lagging economy further drags down newspaper revenues as businesses find it even more difficult to throw a lot of money at traditional advertising. The trend does not offer much hope for the future.

Newspaper executives are left to cut costs to survive. They do that by reducing staff and by reducing the size of the paper (number of pages and actual dimensions of the paper itself). Anything that is perceived to be of marginal interest is easily discarded in tough times. While we all want to celebrate the growth and success of our local teams, coaches and players, the newspaper man is trying to keep the lights on and his cost-cutting moves work against us.....staffing and reduction in the size of the paper both are counter-opposed to expanding coverage of local High School baseball.