The Printer’s Devil

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If I had written this post 20 years ago, it would have looked a lot different.

One editor once told me back then when he wanted to see how badly written and how parochial another newspaper was, he’d skip the front page, and go directly to the sports pages.

I agreed. I can remember stories like “The Anytown Atoms gave it their all and put up a magnificent football fight before finally succumbing to the Midtown Mashers 76-0.” (That, by the way, was almost word for word from an actual article.)

And back then, sports writers tended to fill their copy with inside jokes and comments understood by the small coterie of coaches and sports geeks they hung out with.

Perhaps it’s a sad commentary on the state of American newspapering, but over the years, sports writing and sports pages have been become the best that American journalism offers.

Even in many small papers, sports writing is sharp, lively, aggressive and witty. And the rest of the news writing isn’t.

At a time when many good journalists dismiss the once-reputable Washington press corps as “the garden club” for their efforts to watch-poodle the Bush Administration and the Iraq War, sports writers have been taking on entrenched college sports programs, blowing the whistle on scholarship frauds, doping scandals and brass-knuckled coverage of sports celebrities and their steroid and criminal capers.

And this is even though most Americans have been become jingoist in their enthusiasm and obsessions for their college and pro sports teams in particular and sports in general.

So what’s the problem, you ask?

Most small dailies and large weeklies will cover their high school, which will likely be a larger school with larger sports programs, plus four to six smaller high schools. Most small dailies will also likely have a community college, small private college and maybe even a medium-sized public university.

Even if you have a two-person sports department — it’s become rare for small dailies — that’s an insuperable load for your sports people to lug.

Conscientious sports reporters will put in tons of time covering night and weekend games and then come in during the day to write the stories.

Most CorpsNews papers frown on regular overtime and as a conscientious editor, you have to be sure they don’t put in more than 40 hours a week — paid or unpaid. Admittedly, there will be those weeks they can’t but get them out of the building whenever possible.

Some newspapers have gotten around that by calling them sports editors and putting them on salary — with the implication that they could still cover everything under the sun but at no cost to the newspaper.

That’s “salary” even if they get paid little better than janitors — actually worse if they work more than 40 hours a week.

Decency demands that you don’t work your employees to death, especially if they have families. And if they’re single, you run the risk of burning them out or encouraging them to leave.

As an editor, you may have turned to the dark side but you get the most out of your reporters if you defend them and look out for their interests before you look out for the interests of whatever CorpsNews outlet you work for.

They need the money and time more than your publisher and your CorpsNews CEO do.

A few other thoughts:

• Although sports has a specialized page and a specialized audience, make sure your reporters write in Queen’s English and a minimum of jargon.

• Above all, except for football, make sure that your paper covers girls and women’s sports on an even par with boys and men’s sports.

You’ll find the parents of girl athletes can be even nastier than those of boys about the ink their kids are getting — women going to college outnumber men by a wide margin and the competition for scholarships and admissions is fierce and for many of those girls, sports is the most attractive alternative to get noticed and get financial awards.

• Don’t be afraid to put sports stories and photos on the front page if it’s newsworthy — state tournaments or other unusual events or personalities.

• If your paper doesn’t already do it, dragoon other reporters to field phone calls on Friday football and basketball nights if you have an afternoon daily that goes to the morning for Saturdays.

It’s handy to have reporters to do stories — even if reluctantly — outside of their usual beats.

Of course, be sure that they get time off, too.

Now for something entirely different, as Monty Python would say:

I notice my friend Eric Gruber has given me a plug on his techno-talk “Eric J. Gruber Web Meat” site: www.ericjgruber.com. I hadn’t expected that and I thank him mightily.

While I’m plugging him in return, I’ll mention he also runs a Web design and guru business called Rumblestrut Studios: www.rumblestrut.com.

He’s been a great help even to this old Luddite who believes the best use for a computer is as a target for a sixteen-and-a-half-pound sledgehammer.

Thanks Eric. I couldn’t have done it without you.