Coverage in the high school newspaper

If you are just tuning in, there is a steady back-and-forth debate between to loyal Loganite readers, DrPezz and MrPibb, who are conflicted about the coverage deserved by and given to various sports and activities at our high school. Normally, I don't defend coverage decisions because the complainants usually don't want an explanation, they want something changed. Then, amid the barbs this week came this Anonymous post:

I noticed a lot of coverage on teams that were losing... didn't see too much of the boys swim team having an undefeated season and first at districts/anything else too interesting even though the paper wasn't readily available to me. I, however when I was at the highschool more often, did not recall EVER getting to vote on anything that dealth with issues in the paper (like polls). It would have been cooler if we had more people vote than just like 50 that are in your class or whatever you guys do.

With the above comment and the cheer-coverage strand, let me explain a bit of background regarding the decisionmaking about sports coverage and activities at school.

The student staff has committed each year to cover every sport and every squad at a minimum level. That means reporting every score plus a highlight and quote for the three-week interval between issues. This past year, the sports editor also chose to have a narrative story on each varsity sport at some point during the season, which could go further in-depth than just the scores and highlights, even if the team was losing. Heck, if we only covered the wins, there would not be much in some issues. The sports editor also developed a banner with mugs of notable varsity performances with quotes and a series of notable facts. This, with at least one action photo each issue, which we also try to balance among verious teams during the season, comprises two pages.

The timeliness of each edition -- every three weeks -- makes game summaries worthless. People already know the results from another source or it has been so long that they don't care. So, the students determined they would simply document the scores and highlights as listed above. They also committed a full page each issue for a profile of a player or coach. They try to balance this around the various sports, buut there are more sports than there are issues of the newspaper in a year, so some of the smaller sports get skipped in a year. Sometimes these are profiles of the all-star standouts, other times they highlight a player who has come back from injury or who sits on the bench but has great team spirit and so on.

When the decision was made in 2001 to switch to this format, student editors knew that it would mean that coverage of a state championship or other truly exceptional performance would most likely not receive the coverage it had received earlier. The tradeoff was better coverage during the season, knowing that the number of exeptional performances would be few.

Coverage decisions -- in sports or any other section -- are always based on a few factors:
Is it timely? This means how much time has elapsed since the event occurred. Priority is given to stories that are more "fresh." It's called a newspaper, not an oldspaper, after all. We want recent events, and preference is always given to stories that we can break.
Is it noteworthy? Is this exceptional or routine? The more exceptional the event, the more likely it will receive larger coverage. Another related factor is the likelihood that readers will have already learned the news from another source.
Is it significant? It might be exceptional or unusual and recent but that doesn't mean anyone cares. Reader interest also plays a factor. We also rely on participants to act as filters to help us understand when something is a big deal.
Are we able to cover this? Often there are limitations to coverage, including closeness to deadline, availability of a reporter, proximity to our town. This is a significant reason that post-season sports get little coverage -- they take place a long way from home, and we don't have resources to send a reporter or photographer. Sometimes sources also complicate coverage by being unavailable or unwilling to talk to a reporter.
Is there space? The number of pages is based on a budget and certain requirements of the printing press. That budget is determined by the amount of advertising sold. We have often cut smaller stories or trimmed larger ones because there simply was not space available.

All in all, it's not a perfect science. As for the coverage of smaller sports, I will say that the students try to be fair, and I hold them to account for doing so. Admittedly, girls swimming deserved far more coverage, and the boys team could have had some more, too. The boys team received a full-page profile of one of its players this year.

As for the polls, those were not done as frequently this year, or at least with the structure they have had in years past. If only 50 students were polled, then 1,900 weren't, so you were among a pretty large group that also was not asked a question. We did add a poll feature to the Web site this spring, though.

Finally, I feel I have to explain a bit about cheerleading and its coverage. In addition to all the factors listed above, there were some special circumstances for cheerleading stories. The student editors had planned a story about the team's plans to host and compete in a competition. It was a first. Close to the event, it became known that the local team would not compete because some members would not be available. That pretty much killed the story. Probably there should have been a follow-up, even an advance story about preparations for the state competition. There was a brief about the second-place finish. Again, it would have been helpful to know that even though there were just six teams, that placing second was an accomplishment.

I would also point out that a brief is all that was printed by the newspaper staff about themselves when the newspaper was just one of 23 papers to win a very prestigious national award for the first time ever. Or when it was one of just 26 papers to win another very prestigious national award. Or when, in 2001, when it was the sole winner in a national contest. Or when its adviser was named adviser of the year in April (that received one sentence, by the way). Same for the nationally recognized yearbook. That's because the general readership doesn't care how many awards you win. They just want a good newspaper or yearbook. Document and announce, of course, but don't toot your own horn too much. But that rule should not apply to every activity -- you could imagine how ridiculous it would be if the cheerleaders made a self-promoting cheer and chanted it at each halftime -- and the newspaper should try to reflect the importance of student accomplishments and place them in context.

There was a story in May about the allegations of inappropriate cheerleader initiation activities. Yes, it was more than a brief. It was newsworthy. That there had been only small stories about cheer earlier is, frankly, irrelevant. Would those who criticized this story be much less critical if there had been a huge flattering story earlier about the hardworking and dedicated cheerleaders? I highly doubt it. It would have been that same size if it had been any team in the same circumstances, too.

Whew! I guess I have had a lot to say about this topic. I will tell you one thing: I am pitching a story for the Sept. 21, 2005, edition of the newspaper that shows the cheerleaders behind the scenes and helps readers understand the amount of work they do. No guarantees, of course, but it's a story that probably needs to be written (again, by the way -- did one in 1998).

Comments welcomed as always. But I didn't need to tell anyone that.

-- Wenatchee, Wash.