What Up With The Startlegram?

[Mean Green 93-98]

I went to their website to see what coverage they had of UNT's win and of their upcoming game, and I could find nothing. The only area game to report on, and nada. And in the college sports section, where they have tabs for the different teams, there is no "UNT" tab. They have every Big XII team south of Kansas, TCU, UTA, and SMU. But no UNT. Something stinks here.

[OldTimer]

I went to their website to see what coverage they had of UNT's win and of their upcoming game, and I could find nothing. The only area game to report on, and nada. And in the college sports section, where they have tabs for the different teams, there is no "UNT" tab. They have every Big XII team south of Kansas, TCU, UTA, and SMU. But no UNT. Something stinks here.

They laid off the reporter who covered NT to "save money". They had a very short article on our game Thursday...and the only article on the team was a 1/3 page with a picture of Todd Dodge....Riley is going to save his dad's job. I've called their sports editior and talked with her prior to our first game mentioning 35,000 students and their families and the number in the DFW area to no avail. The Telegram covers the TX Rangers and the DMN covers the cowboys and they exchange information with each other.

[eulessismore]

They laid off the reporter who covered NT to "save money". They had a very short article on our game Thursday...and the only article on the team was a 1/3 page with a picture of Todd Dodge....Riley is going to save his dad's job. I've called their sports editior Celest Williams 817- 390- 7697 and talked with her prior to our first game mentioning 35,000 students and their families and the number in the DFW area to no avail.

I've been thinking for a while now that we should just consider ourselves lucky to have Brett Vito and the DRC, as bitter a pill as that is to swallow. This is just an era of cutting back on reporters, and Denton having its own newspaper (even with the Belo owership) is probably our saving grace on getting any print media coverage.

[SUMG]

The FW-ST...didn't even mention us in their special football section.....when it came out.

Friday's paper had a small game write up....page 8 D. And I think it was written by our SID Dept......as University of North Texas was in the byline.

[greenminer]

Clearly, you're new to the area?

[island eagle]

The FW-ST...didn't even mention us in their special football section.....when it came out.

Friday's paper had a small game write up....page 8 D. And I think it was written by our SID Dept......as University of North Texas was in the byline.

Obviously time to cancel FWST subscriptions. If they don't wish to serve their public then why support them?

[drex]

It is no secret that Denton is a Dallas Morning News town, and to a lesser degree, a Denton Record Chronicle town. This must be a mission for our alums who live in Fort Worth to call the Star Telegram and raise hell, as they are the only ones that count as the Star Telegram sees it. Are you up for the mission, Fire Fightin Rick?

[Mean Green 93-98]

Clearly, you're new to the area?

They've given us good coverage in the past. Obviously not as much as TCU or UT/A&M/OU, but at least we had our own tab in the college sports section of their website.

[Green P1]

I'd PM Flyeater.

[filmerj]

better be prepared to read the same stuff we get on meangreen sports, because there is no way they are going to spend money on a reporter to cover nt. when they can't even cover the cowboys.

[stebo]

I don't think people understand how much trouble the newspaper business is in right now. It is so bad that the DaMN is tossing free papers in my part of Dallas just so that they can get coupons out for their advertisers. Newspapers live off ads, the cost of the paper doesn't even cover the distribution costs (and doesn't TOUCH the price of putting a paper together). When the country can hop on Yahoo and read the news immediately - why would they wait for tomorrow? When I can read 5 or 5 articles about the Mean Green on the internet - why would I buy a paper or subscribe to the paper? Well, it has always been the Sunday coupons for most people - that and the ads... but more and more advertisers are putting their money elsewhere because they see no return from it. So if you want the Ft Worth paper to cover Mean Green - there had better be a good, solid group of actual newspaper subscribers in your back pocket. Not people that pick up a paper at the Denny's every now and then because those barely break even - but actual subscribers that get the paper tossed on their lawn every day.

If you have that - you might get them to listen. Otherwise, they are just trying to keep from shutting down like most papers across the country. If not covering NT football is going to make 50 people mad but save a couple jobs - I think that the paper will keep the jobs. Newspaper men and women barely get paid enough to make a living as it is... I am going to guess that only small time papers are the way of the future. A city like Denton might be just the right size to keep their paper... not on the national scene so local matters will need to be covered by the local paper. The Ft Worth paper will probably continue to retract until it is much like the DRC. BELO can borrow stories from other cities at their other publications and keep their overhead low so the DaMN should be ok for now.

[GreenBat]

What Stebo said is true. The internet is killing or has killed a number of newspapers in this country. Bloggers and such have made the morning paper a thing of the past.

[filmerj]

What Stebo said is true. The internet is killing or has killed a number of newspapers in this country. Bloggers and such have made the morning paper a thing of the past.

and traditional tv and tv news is going to follow right behind the papers. trust me. High quality production values are no longer a priority in this you tube, reality show generation. and no I am not old.

Edited September 5, 2009 by filmerj

[Keith7]

What Stebo said is true. The internet is killing or has killed a number of newspapers in this country. Bloggers and such have made the morning paper a thing of the past.

Local newspapers are going strong though. Also Belo's stock is nearly five times what it was back in March and I really don't know much about the stock market but I think that is pretty good and shows that things might be looking up for them. Its true that the internet has hurt newspapers dramatically. Newspapers now are scrambling to find ways to make money off the internet.. Internet ads alone aren't enough to pay for a newsroom so look for newspapers to start trying new things soon to make money off the internet (ie charging for its content, special content, more multimedia, stuff of that nature.)

That being said, before I got my current job, I sent the Star Telegram an e-mail essentially telling them that I would cover UNT for free just to have a byline in their newspaper but never got a response. I have a degree in journalism from UNT and was Sports Editor at the NT Daily so its not like I'm just a bum off the street.

I'm sure the Star Telegram will end up being fine and they will do what they can to get UNT coverage when the right opportunities come along but don't expect it to be like any thing you're used to.

[Mean Green 93-98]

I know newspapers are having to cut costs and coverage, but the Startlegram indicates they will still have SMU coverage. That's fine, but why SMU and not UNT? The DMN has far better SMU coverage than the Startlegram ever will. There are far more UNT alumni than SMU in the Fort Worth area. There is local Todd/Riley Dodge interest around Fort Worth.

Read the posts on this board from the past year or two, and you can find many mentions of how UNT fans prefer the S-T because of its better UNT coverage. They lost that edge and then some.