I donāt see anything wrong with the coverage in the Charlotte Observer.
I allow the Observer to embed reporters in the locker room all the time during the home games at the Dean Dome so that way they can get exclusive coverage. In return, they keep the recruiting pipeline through western North Carolina open for me and my staff.
I respect Coach Lutz and he is building a powerful program at UNCC, but we canāt let your school steal away our fans.
Just about every post Iāve read here is right on the money. The āOā totally dropped the ball on this one.
I canāt think of a better home game for a casual fan to witness this year than todayās game vs. Xavier. The new scoreboard, a high quality opponent, a possible rekindled rivalry versus a Cincinnati-based team, fired-up fans - Iāve been looking forward to the game for a while. Too bad no one at the paper is looking forward to it.
Judging by Jim Utterās columns so far, I get the impression that although he has nothing against the school, the articles are written by someone who is more of a motorsports guy than a college basketball guy. I have no problem with that. If that means more stories on the people and players in the program like he said are coming - Iād welcome him to do it. Maybe some local readers without much interest in basketball will read a Marcus Bennett story and decide that checking out a game might be a cool thing to do that night.
But to not do a damn thing on gameday in B*******. Ooooh! Ooooh! an āInside the Atlantic 10ā article! Are you kidding me? Donāt give me this ā1000 ways to for people to find outā crap. If thatās the case, why not just eliminate the sports pages altogether and let people find out about the latest football, basketball, hockey, baseball, or NASCAR event somewhere else?
Iām sure weāll get our usual nice meager story in the paper tomorrow about the game and weāll hear the same old song and dance from the Observer crew. All about how the coverage was appropriate, maybe some ridiculous comparisons to the NFL playoff articles (for the record, I can see college basketball taking a back seat to major sporting events. I just refuse to tolerate the Charlotte team taking a back seat to another college basketball team). Then weāll hear from the Observer staff that we should feel free to debate them - we can feel free to say we should have more coverage while they will feel free to say that we have not earned it yet. WHY THE HELL SHOULD THERE EVEN BE THIS DEBATE!?!
Someone needs to ask Xavier what they have to do to āearnā local coverage over another Ohio school. Maybe HP can ask his Dayton friends what Dayton needs to do to reach the next level so that the local paper covers their games instead of the University of Ohio. Iād love to hear the reaction.
The day will come in a year or two when people outside of Charlotte will be more exited and informed about our program than residents are. Some might argue itās already happened.
It is really difficult to believe any of the excuses fed to us when other in-state papers and almost all of our opponants papers seem to cover the exact things we are wanting, the same things the Observer keeps saying are simply out of the question
[QUOTE]For one, you will be hard pressed to find what you would normally consider āgame advancesā for hardly any college game any more[/QUOTE]
Why are there multiple links every game we play to our opponants newspapers with these game advances are you āhardly see any more?ā Why does the Wilmington Star give complete pre and post game coverage of all UNCW mens and womens games on their front cover?
Simply amazing to hear the crock that keeps firing out of the Big Oās mouths on this board, there is a difference between āwe canātā and āwe donāt want to.ā I just wish somebody would step up and admit you simply donāt want to give the 49ers the proper coverage that any other local newspaper would give itās biggest local school. Iām sure nobody there has a personal vendetta against the school or itās athletic programs, but something is keeping our ālocalā paper from giving us the coverage that any other annual NCAA tournament contender gets from their paper.
Just want to add that I do appriciate Jim Utter coming here to try to give us some explainaton. But, as he expected, it isnāt going to change any minds. It is the thought that counts.
Jim Utter, while youāre over here visiting, can you answer a quick question for us. Mike P has either refused to answer.
When is the Observer going to do an article on Eddie Basdeen playing for the Chicago Bulls? Every player from chapel il that went to the NBA has about a million words written about them in the Observer. Mike has told us the Observer would never do an article about Eddie. WHY?
The only reason I can come up with is that he doesnāt want people in Charlotte too know how good some of the Niner players have been. It looks like this is another classic example of promoting and marketing the tarholes.
Iāve been asked by numerous basketball fans (not Niner fans) and I always have a really nice answer. $$$$$$$$
Iāve been saying for a long time, the biggest problem with UNC Charlotte is not the school. It is the city around it.
We get no respect, no coverage, no publicity, no help, and no love anywhere in the city.
We tried to put the spirit flags that are now proudly displayed on campus out on 29/49 and what response did we get from the city?
A big no, because it violated some ordianance or another about having non-city approved flags on city structures.
Iād like to see this cityās economy without UNC Charlotte. We provide so many graduates.
I worked a job this summer where I dealt with the transportation of a lot of people through uptown and most everyone I met asked me if I was going to school. When I said I went to UNC Charlotte, they either said they had graduated from there or they said it was a great school, or said something about how good of a basketball team we are (usually only out of state people said this).
Ok, my rant is overā¦
complaining on this board will not solve the problem. we have to take it beyond the board. complaining to the sports editor does no good. he laughs at us. but we can go straight to the observerās parent company. tell them how much business they ae losing because of his stubborness and prejudice. i personally know of over 20 people that refuse to read the observer because of their reporting inconsistencies and favortism. myself included.
As I pointed out in the āXavier pre-gameā threadā¦
The Cincy papers had 9 pieces on the Charlotte-Xavier game, plus 4 blogs by Dustin Dow and a poll on how to defend Withers, for a total of 14 over a 2-day period. The Observer had 2 sentences in this morning's paper (3 if you count the A-10 Notebook).
Geezā¦ :rolleyes:
My 2 Cents
The Observersā entire philosophy towards the production of news is the problem. Their objective is to sell newspapers. The idea behind the newspaper originally was that people wanted to be updated on āwhats newā in the world. People desire to be in the loop. So the Charlotte Observer takes that to mean that people desire to know whatās new with reference to things they already know.
However this logic has a flaw. It assumes that people are content to be in a state of ignorance or content with the level of enlightenment that they have achieved. I would argue that in a metropolitan city such as Charlotte this is clearly not the case. I would say that with the high amount of transition, Charlotte has a large portion of āblank slateā audience or an audience that is impressionable. Therefore it would behoove the Charlotte Observer to present a more wholistic view of Charlotte and the surrounding area.
Unfortunately the Observer refuses to accept this premise. They simply contend that they are giving the audience what they want (i.e. the audience wants to remain in ignorance or ignorance is bliss) the reality is that the Observer is in a state of blissful ignorance. Because they ignore population movement tracks and insist that every college basketball fan in Charlotte went to an ACC school. This is why so many people in Charlotte donāt buy the Charlotte Observer instead opting for the USA Today or Wall Street Journal as it presents news that provide what the Charlotte Observer lacks in diversity.
My 2 Cents.
Hey 49erfan that is exactly what I was trying to sayā¦ you just said it MUCH better!
[QUOTE=Forty-Niner;148625]I think the Observerās āhomeā team is tarheel blue.[/QUOTE]
Thats because it is ā¦ so many ulum live here
Hopefully the Observer decoided against sending a writer, I donāt want to re live that crap.
Itās the same old storyā¦when I was in Charlotte 10-12 years ago the Observer was terrible then too. However, the only way to improve coverage in Charlotte and across the state is to actually do something. Getting to the tournament is greatā¦but so many NC teams do that every year. We have to do something to stand out. Getting ready for a big conference game at home and then getting beat down by 13 pointsā¦Iām not sure we are worthy of coverage. Many of you have talked about the casual fanā¦and when they see that we got hammered at home, well, they will not care to see or read about us anyway. Just my two cents.
[QUOTE]We tried to put the spirit flags that are now proudly displayed on campus out on 29/49 and what response did we get from the city?
A big no, because it violated some ordianance or another about having non-city approved flags on city structures. [/QUOTE]
Thatās pathetic. UNCG and UNCW both have flags all over the freaking place.
[QUOTE=49erFan1;148714]
However this logic has a flaw. It assumes that people are content to be in a state of ignorance.
[/QUOTE]
they do go after the people in a complete state of ignorence. they are called walmart tarhole fans.
[QUOTE=HappyCamper49;148707]
We tried to put the spirit flags that are now proudly displayed on campus out on 29/49 and what response did we get from the city?
A big no, because it violated some ordianance or another about having non-city approved flags on city structures.
[/QUOTE]
Did anyone ask about getting the spirit flags approved?
Iām disgusted about the loss but not as disgusted as I am about this. It should be repeated and repeated!
[QUOTE=run49er;148704][B][SIZE=6]Over40, letās count 'em up. The Cincy papers had 9 pieces on the Charlotte-Xavier game, plus 4 blogs by Dustin Dow and a poll on how to defend Withers, for a total of 14 over a 2-day period. The Observer had 2 sentences in this morningās paper (3 if you count the A-10 Notebook). Iām completely underwhelmed!!![/SIZE][/B] :rolleyes:[/QUOTE]
I thought newspapers no longer did gameday pieces? :rolleyes:
If you pick yourself up todayās Greensboro News and Record, you would read on the front page a capsule about Carolina and Stateās home games today. However, the third capsule is NC A and T vs. whoever and the fourth capsule is the UNCG and Elon game.
TGN&R is a weak paper and is also up the ACCās ass and around the corner, but they still manage to spend more time covering Guilford, UNCG, and A & T, the the O spends on Charlotte.
The O is not a regional paper.
Tintin
Theyāll have at least 3 pieces in the Cincinnati newspaper tomorrow morning.