Sports Field Guide

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has developed a phone application to promote news, results and analysis about the Cardinals.

Sometimes, I assume everybody’s on board when it comes to the Internet. I assume that most newspapers and college journalism programs realize how to use multimedia. And we all know what happens when one assumes.

Spoke with some college students here at the Mid-America Press Institute  sports conference in St. Louis who shook their heads when asked about their college publication – a weekly in print.

The conversation:

Me: “So do you print updated news each day.”

College journalist: “No, we just put everything online the day the print edition comes out.”

Me: “But do you post stories on sports, like football, online the night they are played.”

College journalist: “No, but that’s a good idea. We might have to try that.”

Clearly, this college student is not at all fault. He has not been taught, or encouraged, to think about the news process. This needs to come from the senior editors, and, more importantly, from those running the journalism program at his school.

Every single college publication needs to publish news online daily. That does not mean lengthy features, which can be reserved for the print edition. At the very least, write a quick overview of a football, basketball or softball game online that offers results, key plays and a few quotes. In print, can then offer a game with far more context, depth and sources. This is the way of the sports journalism world. If your paper does not have a website, create a WordPress account, which is free and easy to use.

Here are a few topics addressed in the first session here at the MPI sports conference.

Where to break  news

For example, should newspapers scoop themselves online or in other social media. ESPN does not allow reporters to break anything on Twitter, but does allow on their website.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch sports editor Reid Laymance said his paper experimented with this last fall when his reporters had scoops on both the Cardinals and the Rams. The Cards news was immediately inserted online; the Rams news was held for the print edition. The next day, the Rams story was the most heavily read in print while the Cards story was the most read online. Plus, local TV stations reported the story, citing the Post-Dispatch, giving the paper free publicity. Ultimately, both stories recorded about the same number of hits. In this case, it did not matter where the story broke.

The Post-Dispatch also relies on the copy desk for breaking news.  A reporter first posts a few graphs on news, such as when the Cards traded for Matt Holliday last year. The sports desk then pads the story, adding career stats and comments from manager Tony La Russa. This allows the reporter to get back to covering the baseball game.

Using social media

The Post-Dispatch is also developing ways to distribute info on other social media. They recently offered an application for the phones that offers news, analysis and results on the Cardinals. At $2.99, the P-D figured 20,000 people would sign up for the application. So far, about 6,000 are on board – but most of the revenue has probably gone to the software developer, Laymance said.

Revenue

Advertising revenue from the print paper is still about 90% of revenue – and Sunday ads still drive all advertising. “We can’t forget about the paper,” said Laymance.