While over reading Tony's Kansas City this morning, I came across a link to Bottom Line Communications, a blog that proclaims to be "examining all things media...". He has a post on the recent layoffs the KC Star is doing. One of those names should stand out to Wizards fans, and that's Bob Luder. Luder, along with Pete Grathoff have been covering the Wizards for the past few years. What does this mean for the Wizards coverage in the Star? It could mean a couple things. It could mean that Wizards coverage will now all fall directly on Grathoff to cover, which could mean a drop in coverage for the team in KC's paper of record. It could also mean the Wizards get a low level sports department person that knows very little about soccer covering the team.
As if my complaints earlier about the Star weren't enough, if this is true, I have a feeling we're going to see a dip in coverage at the Star.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
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3 comments:
Thanks for reading.
I never thought about that, but unfortunately I think you're right.
On the bright side, that makes your blog more important.
While I understand your concern and think it's bad Bob is going, why is it assumed that a "low level" person would have less understanding of soccer? I thought of all the complaints about the media in general, one of the silver linings was that the alleged anti-soccer bias would disappear from newspapers as younger reporters moved up the ranks.
The thought that sports departments are just full of people who don't understand and appreciate soccer is a myth. They are filled with sports fans and many enjoy soccer, just not always to the point of those of us who blog and troll message boards and make a crusade out of it.
You could do a lot worse than a "low level" person from sports because it's not beyond the realm of possibility that the next Steve Goff or Grant Wahl is just waiting for this kind of oportunity.
Brian, that silverlining may not be turn. It's entirely possible that the bias is still there, you still have plenty of people that dislike the sport and don't even think it is one. All you have to do is read comments to Star articles about the team.
The Star itself is known for it's lack of coverage of the team, and even if we do have the next Goff or Wahl come into the Star, I'd expect them to be squashed by the current Star staff that doesn't like the sport.
I would guess Mike's worry is that if (and that's a big if, cause I'm of the opinion that Grathoff will have to shoulder all the load now) the Star adds a new writer to covering the Wizards, that that writer will be more in the mold of the current staff.
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