Opened up the sports page looking for an article on the big game and what do I see? An article on George Karl and the Nuggets. Are we now the home team paper of the Bobcats visting opponents?
I then have to turn to the last page of the paper to see an article with no picture talking about the game tonight.
This is absolutely pathetic. I may be the only person on the board that still gets a subscription to the paper, but I just called and cancelled!
Our “hometown” paper is an absolute joke!
Who cares??? It’s gameday!! We’ll be on the front page tomorrow.
GO NINERS!!!
[i]Originally posted by morningwood[/i]@Feb 16 2005, 07:49 AM [b] Opened up the sports page looking for an article on the big game and what do I see? An article on George Karl and the Nuggets. Are we now the home team paper of the Bobcats visting opponents?I then have to turn to the last page of the paper to see an article with no picture talking about the game tonight.
This is absolutely pathetic. I may be the only person on the board that still gets a subscription to the paper, but I just called and cancelled!
Our “hometown” paper is an absolute joke! [/b]
Get over it.
The complaint is because we have a Top 25 team in the City that not many people know about and they are featuring an article about the coach of a team that the Bobcats are playing.
The headline alone, 49ers, DePaul play for 1st in C-USA, dictated page 1 coverage.
:ponder: If Miami and Va Tech were playing for the same thing tonight, would that have made the first page? Heck, even the editorial I posted earlier made the front page today.
Sadly, I agree HP. This game deserved better than next to last page but I guess when we have to leave tickets outside for anyone to just grab, offer 1-for-2 deals and have our coach basically plea for people to come out to games, we can’t really expect the coverage to be any better.
I do expect a feature story tomorrow.
We still subscribe to the Observer in my household and probably always will as long as we live in Charlotte. That aside, I was very surprised to open up this morning’s paper and find the most prominent thing on the front of the sports page to be the football stadium at the new Ballantyne High School in southern Mecklenburg County - complete with a large, color photo!
I knew they would give coverage to George Karl because he’s a Carolina boy. Sadly, no mention of Rodney White (more a commentary on Rodney than the Observer, I’ll admit).
So, for you Observer apologists, if you are telling me that the most important thing happening in Charlotte today is a Bobcats game versus the Denver Nuggets and a high school football stadium, then that’s pretty sad.
With it being Jarvis Lang bobblehead night, they could have done a story on him. Afterall, yesterday’s promiment story was a profile on a former hoopster at Montreat College who spent 2 1/2 years in prison!
If the Big O had given the proper attention to this game, MP would be in hot water with his acc cronies. Don’t forget, they have a history of NOT encouraging interest in our games (which have historically sparked the feuds between MP & myself).
I sometimes wonder if MP is in cahoots with the other MP (Packer). I just realized they have the same initials.
[b]I was very surprised to open up this morning's paper and find the most prominent thing on the front of the sports page to be the football stadium at the new Ballantyne High School in southern Mecklenburg County - complete with a large, color photo![/b]
Yea, that was a waste.
[i]Originally posted by run49er[/i]@Feb 16 2005, 10:18 AM [b] So, for you Observer apologists, if you are telling me that the most important thing happening in Charlotte today is a Bobcats game versus the Denver Nuggets and a high school football stadium, then that's pretty sad.With it being Jarvis Lang bobblehead night, they could have done a story on him. Afterall, yesterday’s promiment story was a profile on a former hoopster at Montreat College who spent 2 1/2 years in prison! [/b]
GO NINERS!!!
40whiners!!! It is so true.
First we don’t get enough coverage, now the coverage isn’t in the spot most appealing in the sports section. Some of you must live for reasons to bitch and moan.
[i]Originally posted by run49er[/i]@Feb 16 2005, 09:18 AM [b] We still subscribe to the Observer in my household and probably always will as long as we live in Charlotte. That aside, I was very surprised to open up this morning's paper and find the most prominent thing on the front of the sports page to be the football stadium at the new Ballantyne High School in southern Mecklenburg County - complete with a large, color photo!I knew they would give coverage to George Karl because he’s a Carolina boy. Sadly, no mention of Rodney White (more a commentary on Rodney than the Observer, I’ll admit).
So, for you Observer apologists, if you are telling me that the most important thing happening in Charlotte today is a Bobcats game versus the Denver Nuggets and a high school football stadium, then that’s pretty sad.
With it being Jarvis Lang bobblehead night, they could have done a story on him. Afterall, yesterday’s promiment story was a profile on a former hoopster at Montreat College who spent 2 1/2 years in prison! [/b]
:o
At least Jena is providing some good information on the game and tickets.
:angry
Couldn’t they have made the picture and the headline smaller for the Ballantyne stadium article to accommodate our article on the front page?
This is not the first time this has happened. Mike P is really worried about getting in trouble with his acc cronies.
S9er, how are things at the Observer today?
This will be my one and only post on this topic. A Niners fan sent an e-mail to publisher Peter Ridder, who passed it along to me. I thought I’d share my response:
(Name removed),
Peter Ridder passed along your note, and I wanted to take a moment to respond. I believe our coverage of the Charlotte 49ers this season has been superior to any previous season. Jena Janovy, in her first year covering the team, has done an outstanding job of reporting on this team, both in game coverage and in feature stories.
That said, it is not our job to promote the program, only to report on it. Promotion is the job of the university’s marketing and sports information offices, and ticket sales are the responsibility of the ticket office. We seldom do straight game advances on any team on the front page of the newspaper – and neither N.C. State nor North Carolina had a separate advance story in today’s paper despite fan bases in our circulation area that rival or surpass that of Charlotte. If we do a gameday story on the section front, it is almost always a human interest or news piece. But we recognize that the 49ers have a big game, and we wrote about it.
We have many things to balance in our coverage, and as a business we try to make the best decisions we can to sell newspapers. One of those decisions is on story placement. Not everyone will agree with our decisions, but that’s the nature of a general interest newspaper.
Good luck to the Niners this evening. If you pick up Thursday’s Observer, coverage of that game will be on the front page.
If you have more questions, please feel free to contact me directly.
Sincerely,
Michael Persinger
Executive Sports Editor
The Charlotte Observer
(704) 358-5132
mpersinger@charlotteobserver.com
[i]Originally posted by Over40NINER[/i]@Feb 16 2005, 11:32 AM [b] This is not the first time this has happened. Mike P is really worried about getting in trouble with his acc cronies.S9er, how are things at the Observer today? [/b]
We are nationally ranked with a HUGE game tonight, yet bitching about what page our game story ran on is really important :rolleyes:
If some of you spent as much energy recruiting fans as you did bitching about the coverage we’d have a packed house every night.
[i]Originally posted by morningwood[/i]@Feb 16 2005, 08:12 AM [b] The complaint is because we have a Top 25 team in the City that not many people know about and they are featuring an article about the coach of a team that the Bobcats are playing. [/b]THE SAD REALITY IS THAT, MORE PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT KARL BECAUSE OF HIS CAROLINA ROOTS. ALTHOUGH I DO AGREE WITH THE ALL OF THE OBSERVER BASHERS BECAUSE OF NO PUB- I AM FORCED TO READ IT ONLINE BECAUSE I LIVE IN FLORIDA. THAT IS, AFTER I READ ALL THE INFORMATIVE POSTS ON THESE MESSAGE BOARDS. IT SOUNDS LIKE THE FAN BASE IS GROWING MORE AND MORE THOUGH, FROM ALL THE OUTSIDERS WHO ARE INTERESTED IN THE NINERS, BUT CAN'T ATTEND GAMES.
HOPEFULLY, AT LEAST YOU’LL GET TO SEE ANOTHER GREAT WIN HOPEFULLY-EVEN IF THERE’S NO PIC IN THE PAPER TOMORROW.
We’ll get front page with photos tomorrow and this is great and expected based on being a local top 25 team playing at home.
The problem today is not with the ACC. It’s with the decision to run a huge color photo/story of a high school football stadium on the front page of Sports…and the story on the big Charlotte game relegated to the back.
[i]Originally posted by LeftyNiner[/i]@Feb 16 2005, 01:27 PM [b] It's with the choice of running a huge color photo/story of a high school football stadium on the front page of Sports....and the big Charlotte game story delegated to the back. [/b]With all respect to high schools in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg area, the only time they should ever see front page story coverage is during the state playoffs.
A photo of a new stadium in February, I thought football season ran from late August-November? And a battle for first place in a major NCAA conference between two teams in the top 20-30 range gets back page coverage?
“We are nationally ranked with a HUGE game tonight, yet bitching about what page our game story ran on is really important rolleyes.gif
If some of you spent as much energy recruiting fans as you did bitching about the coverage we’d have a packed house every night.”
you are right, if we were no. 1 we would not get the front page every gameday and the day after. our coverage has improved, lets be thankful and move on. imo, the complaining has turned into whining and it sounds bad.