What is up with the Portsmouth Daily Times

[yabbadabbadoo]

The article on the Burg winning the regional and going to state was so-so. Nothing big. No big picture on the front page or story on thefront page.

They put a picture on the front of the sports page of a Burg player diving back into the first base bag on a pick-off attempt and THEY DON'T EVEN HAVE THE PLAYERS NAME!!!!!!!!!!! It looks like Dustin Cook, but come on. How about getting with the coach, pick out a picture and then ask him for the players name. If that is not an option, then how about using a picture that you can actually tell who the player is, so that you can put the players name with the pic. That put a name with the other two pictures they used.

You know, it used to be abig deal around here when a local team made the final four or the state tourney in anything. They used to do stories all week leading up the games, now they hardly even put an article in the day before about the upcoming game. I still have papers from when the Burg made it to the final game in basketball in 1984 and that whole week they ran stories about individual players, about the upcoming opponent and stuff about the game. It is not just the Burg that that is happening to. Clay didn't get much ink on their quest to the finals last year. If it wasn't for SEOP's, I don't know if I would have even known that Clay was going to the state. Sad!!!!!!

It was bad enough that the top story on the front page is a national story out of Chicago about what people are going to be doing with their rebate checks. Give me a break!!!!! Who gives a rats behind what people are going to do with their rebate checks. Hell, I haven't even received mine yet, so I'll believe they really exist when I actually see mine.

[alabama mike]

Hopefully, the PDT will be running some feature stories this week on the team.

[yabbadabbadoo]

Don't have to worry about that happening.

[biggdowgg]

stop reading the paper,and keep coming here


Im sure drrabbit will even have some pictures to post soon

[SOC_Track_Fan]

It's not just baseball either.

Did you see the small press they gave the local SOC track runners who made it to STATE?

SAD!

If this was Portsmouth it would be a special edition section.

[alabama mike]

Doc was not at either of the regional games Burg played but she did have Doc 1A there taking pictures of the games.

I did see the very small piece about the track people going to state. Its a shame that the PDT cannot get games covered, ESPECIALLY, with so few high school sporting events taking place at this time in the year.

The Scioto Voice will have coverage of the local events. Mr. Kuhn at the PDT needs to wake up and light a fire under someones rear end.

[drrabbit]

I have to admit that I think I identified the picture on the front of the Voice sports wrong this week. I labeled it Ronnie Strickland from Northwest but the more I look at it, the more I think it is Hank Leslie. I just did not think I had a picture of the latter and didn't look close when I sent it in. If course if I KNEW it was going to be the main picture of the 25 I sent in, I would have been a little more careful.

What I am trying to say though is that it is hard sometimes to label pictures. And I have deliberately sent in some track pictures this year with no names. The kids don't wear numbers on their fronts and I don't take pictures of their backs--that is assuming I did get a roster. I hate to be limited to pictures of just those kids that I know by sight. I might be wrong but I think the other kids would like to have their pictures in the paper occassionally even if they are not named. It would be easier if I decided which pictures that I am going to use when at the event. With digitals today, you can show the picture to someone and they can name them for you but I rarely look at pictures and decide what to submit until hours later and its too late to get them identified then.

BTW it is Dustin Cook in the picture. I spend too much time with these kids' pictures to not recognize them.

Oh--and my sister (A1) enjoyed her first two baseball games so much, she is volunteering to come with me on Friday. And that in spite of the fact that I have to go from the baseball game to the State Track meet and she has sworn that she would never attend another track meet as long as she lived!

[turncoat-ump13]

I agree and what's the deal with the new sports writer? He does not give any details about the game. He does not tell who got the hits to score the runner. It is like he is writing a novel. He uses words that most scioto county people don't know the meaning of. This is sports, we want to know the stats. Tell who had the big hit, how they scored their runs. Give the kids the credit when they do something good.

The radio stations are not doing a good job of covering the local teams either especially baseball and softball. When I played in the early 90's the radio station would follow local teams at the beginning of the tournament until no local teams were left. We had two local softball teams playing each other this year in the regional semi's and no radio coverage.

[biggdowgg]

It's not just baseball either.

Did you see the small press they gave the local SOC track runners who made it to STATE?

SAD!

If this was Portsmouth it would be a special edition section.

I dont agrre with that,,,I follow all of Portsmouths sports, and there are plenty of times they dont put anything at all in the paper.


I do aggree though, making it to state is a BIG deal, there should have been a front page on it.

you can bet if it was basketball or football there would be a front page...no matter who it was from the area.

[RogueWarrior1965]

you can bet if it was basketball or football there would be a front page...no matter who it was from the area.

It has been that way with the PDT for decades. Baseball has always been slighted when it comes to media coverage. Heck, does anyone remember when there was a time there were no SOC teams for baseball? Go back 25 years or so ago and that was the case.

[bulkmove]

For some reason, spring sports are an afterthought for most schools in Scioto County (I've actually heard administrators say that they hoped their school lost so they wouldn't have to travel to the games) and for the Daily Times. In track, one individual WON their regional event and a small paragraph was written about it. THAT IS ALL.

I remember a couple of weeks ago reading about how the SOC tennis tournament was RAINED OUT, yet they wrote a two page article about it, while baseball teams won tournament games and had a small article wrote for them. (Also, stop putting stories in the PDT that I just read in The Columbus Dispatch the day before).

I don't know how much each writer or editor makes, but it can't be much. I'm sure they try to do the best they can, but it to often seems that fall and winter sports get plenty of coverage while the spring sports get the short end of the stick.

As for the radio, I'm extremely disappointed but on the other hand I expect it. What is the cost to broadcast games? Almost every Friday and Saturday night during the fall and winter, someone is on the radio. Now Burg plays in the REGIONAL FINAL and the game is on 1260? Why not 99.3?

I suggest anyone (or better yet, everyone) that reads this should write to the editor of the PDT and voice their opinion for all to read. GIVE A LITTLE LOVE TO THE SPRING SPORT ATHLETES! They work hard for their sport and deserve a little credit.

[Burg_Grad_77]

I said this on another thread and I'll say it again here. I realize the PDT is strapped for reporters to try to cover all of the games. Why don't they try to contact the area schools and see if there are any students that might be interested in following the teams and writing the story for the PDT. I'm sure it could be worked out where the student could ride the bus with the team to away games and they could maybe even send a photographer with them or they could use the pictures that Drabbit takes at most of the games. The PDT could start a Junior Journalism Program and maybe try to get state funding to run it and maybe pay the kids a set fee for each article. I'm sure that each school has a student that might be interested in journalism and what better way to get a good look at what it would intale than to write sports stories for your own school.

Just something to think about.

[drrabbit]

What it would entail is more than what you may think. For a little while, some of the reporters would use one of my pictures for their lead art when there was no PDT photographer available but that was stopped due to some conflict with their paid photographer's contract. So while I don't care if they use my pictures, they can't because of their organization.

I do recall about 12 years ago that the Scioto Voice tried publishing some high school reporters. It was part of a class at Wheelersburg. They did a pretty good job. My neice wrote some articles on soccer games. But students are busy people and they have trouble making it to events on a regular basis in which they are not involved. And once the assignment was done, so was the reporting.

The other difficulty is writing for a daily paper means having the writing completed by a deadline. High School students can't be expected to go to a baseball game, be there until 7:30 or 8pm, hurry home and, eat supper, write until 9:30 or 10 pm, submit the writing, and THEN study and get up the next day and go to classes all day and repeat this three-five nights a week for an entire season.

I am not saying that it can't happen, but it is the rare teenage student that can 1) make that dedication and 2) handle that schedule.

What is more feasible is to have a student/statistician designate that will call the games in each night for the coach. The paper gets the information and it takes some of the responsibility from the busy coach. That is only 10 minutes extra work on a busy kid's schedule.

One of my brothers did that for the football team back in high school nearly 40 years ago when he was a student-manager. He kept the stats and called them in after each game. It seemed to work well for the times.

[wswo_sports]

It's probably just a case of declining newspaper budgets...in the Internet age, newspapers are struggling to adapt and keep a revenue stream.

I don't remember WNXT going out of their way to cover spring sports unless someone went fairly deep in the tournament. OHSAA doesn't charge rights fees for spring sports broadcasts, but there is still the trouble of finding sponsors and overcoming the technical hurdles (some baseball and softball fields are hard to find an electrical outlet at, much less a press box or a telephone line). What was WZIO used to cover baseball more often, but it may not have paid off since they later went under, got sold, and now air piped in satellite religion from California.

Any school can always form a student group and do their own coverage if they can get a good advisor. Articles and photos can be published to a web site, and they could webcast their own games since most have high speed 'net connections to the buildings.

[burggrad82]

My daughter went to high school at Desales in Columbus her Freshmen year she was intrested in being a writer so the school put her on asignment to cover the football team she wrote a column in the high school paper and took pictures for the article. There were 20 kids doing the same thing with other sports the columbus dispatch would pick up the articles and run some of them in the paper. It works and a good english and art teacher makes a big difference in the program. I like bg77 idea and Wheelersburg would be a good place to start.

[alabama mike]

Not a thing in the PDT's Monday edition?

[yabbadabbadoo]

Did you expect otherwise.

Not like the old days when a team made the final four they did an article everyday right up to the day of the game.

Now if you can get a write up after the game is over, you are lucky.

[swbaseballfan]

i remember back in my high school days, just 10 years ago when the daily times worked with coaches to post players stats every couple weeks in the sunday paper showing league leaders. i sure wish that would be brougt back. i enjoyed seeing how the top players from each school were doing statisticly.

[Mad-Dogg]

It's not just baseball either.

Did you see the small press they gave the local SOC track runners who made it to STATE?

SAD!

If this was Portsmouth it would be a special edition section.

I dont agrre with that,,,I follow all of Portsmouths sports, and there are plenty of times they dont put anything at all in the paper.


I do aggree though, making it to state is a BIG deal, there should have been a front page on it.

you can bet if it was basketball or football there would be a front page...no matter who it was from the area.

you got that right. lets look back at the past 2 years when burg and webster was makin them runs deep in the playoffs. there was excellant coverage. this is burgs first final 4 in baseball since the title season of 96.

BTW i agree with a earlier post. if it was portsmouth in the final 4 in baseball there was be "HUGE" articles all week

[oldtrojan]

It's not just baseball either.

Did you see the small press they gave the local SOC track runners who made it to STATE?

SAD!

If this was Portsmouth it would be a special edition section.

I dont agrre with that,,,I follow all of Portsmouths sports, and there are plenty of times they dont put anything at all in the paper.


I do aggree though, making it to state is a BIG deal, there should have been a front page on it.

you can bet if it was basketball or football there would be a front page...no matter who it was from the area.

you got that right. lets look back at the past 2 years when burg and webster was makin them runs deep in the playoffs. there was excellant coverage. this is burgs first final 4 in baseball since the title season of 96.

BTW i agree with a earlier post. if it was portsmouth in the final 4 in baseball there was be "HUGE" articles all week

As well it should be. Remember the name of the paper. The PORTSMOUTH TIMES not the wheelersburg times. However I do agree that Wheelersburg deserves much better coverage than they are getting.