A Newspaper Unclear On The Concept

[gh]

SF Chronicle this morning dedicated a ton of inches on the agate page to NCAA results. That was the good news.

Problem is, they only covered about half the events and left out the team scoring. So what did they fill the space with? 12-deep men and 15-deep women for each of the 8 multi-event events contested yesterday.... but no final scores for those events either! Aiyeee!!!!!!

[gh]

Re: A Newspaper Unclear On The Concept

Oh yeah, and they printed flight 1 of the men's TJ as the final.

[EPelle]

Re: A Newspaper Unclear On The Concept

I didn t see the Hep final scores on the agate score sheet... perhaps that is where the Chronicle received their info... however, the tj is listed on the agate.

[tafnut]

Re: A Newspaper Unclear On The Concept

Since I teach a course in Journalism, I once asked the sports editor of the local rag, 'The Florida Times-Union', notorious for its coverage of only
a. Football
b. NASCAR
c. Football
d. Baseball
why he often ran random Track agate and his reply was (in essence), "We love track here, because whenever we need more agate to fill space, track always has tons of info and we can run anything we want, because nobody cares and nobody knows what it is anyway."
Sigh . . .

[EPelle]

Re: A Newspaper Unclear On The Concept

Worse than an athlete:s name misspelled: a wrong-time.

From Stanford:

In the women's 5,000 meters, Alicia Craig gained All-America honors for a seventh time at Stanford with a second place in 15:45.08. Craig's time was just short of her school record time of 13:43.04 set last year...

Reuters quoted Lagat as being World 1,500m champion. His closing half was faster than the previous two championships, but he was still world 3k champion.

Also saw a missprinted MGreene running 6.xx for 100m at USA semis on an internet site two weeks ago.

[tafnut]

Re: A Newspaper Unclear On The Concept

Definitely a missprint! :-)

[trackstar]

Re: A Newspaper Unclear On The Concept

What's going on here is not just the agate clerk and his editors not being unclear on the concept, but being ignorant and/or uncaring about it. T&f just isn't a priority for them. Without meaning to insult any of my colleagues, this is why the sports editor at the San Angelo Standard-Times hires me every year to cover the Texas high school championships. He's a former teammate of mine at U. of Texas, and knows that, even though I'm not a professional sportswriter, I know (and care) more about track than any of his full-time staff writers. Too bad every newspaper doesn't have this type of situation -- it allows him to know that t&f is being covered by someone knowledgeable, and frees up his other writers to cover sports that they do care about.

I'd bet your typical sports page agate clerk doesn't have the slightest idea what he's looking at when he/she enters track results.

[marknhj]

Re: A Newspaper Unclear On The Concept

Excuse my ignorance but what on earth is an "agate", the results section?

(off topic but worth sharing: I just called a client and, as usual, got a message. After all the usual stuff about company directory etc. the message said, "Or hold the line and your call will be redirected by a highly skilled telephone routing technician" I kid you not!)

[Pedant]

Re: A Newspaper Unclear On The Concept

Didn't your mum ever teach you that you should never ask what a word means without first trying to look it up in the dictionary?

http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/ ... &x=15&y=15

[Kurt Francis]

Re: A Newspaper Unclear On The Concept

This is nothing.

USATF ITSELF refers to "throwing the shot put" in a number of press releases over the last few years. If the governing body of T&F in this country can't even refer to that heavy round ball as a "shot" and not a "shot put", then how in the world are we to expect that any newspaper outlet to do any better!

Ultimately, such pathetic attempts at statistical reporting, content, and improper nomenclature go to the heart of the fact that the American education system and the average American him/herself is woefully lazy and inept. We are resembling Rome in it's downfall stages more every day.

Kurt

[trackstar]

Re: A Newspaper Unclear On The Concept

>Excuse my ignorance but what on earth is an "agate", the results
>section?

Yes. Sorry about that -- it's journalistic lingo, and I sometimes forget that not everyone knows that. Journalism is an extremely lingo-heavy profession.

[gh]

Re: A Newspaper Unclear On The Concept

No need for you to apologize, Lee: I used "agate" in the initial post in the thread.

[Pego]

Re: A Newspaper Unclear On The Concept

<Ultimately, such pathetic attempts at statistical reporting, content, and improper nomenclature go to the heart of the fact that the American education system and the average American him/herself is woefully lazy and inept. We are resembling Rome in it's downfall stages more every day.>

Now, this is what I call some leap. A few poorly reported T&F results represent a downfall of entire civilization.

[MJD]

Re: A Newspaper Unclear On The Concept

Ultimately, such pathetic attempts at statistical
>reporting, content, and improper nomenclature go to the heart of the fact that
>the American education system and the average American him/herself is woefully
>lazy and inept. We are resembling Rome in it's downfall stages more every
>day.

Kurt

Jim Rome certainly agrees with you:

"Very bad news for all of you out there with brains."

http://www.jimrome.com/archives/0218200 ... cle_5.html

[Kurt Francis]

Re: A Newspaper Unclear On The Concept

MJD:

Yes, I definitely agree with Jim's assessment regarding how pathetic the American culture has become with their current choices of programming. I recognize that I am totally out of sync with the vast majority of the American public. I've personally become so disgusted with television in general that I'll probably discard my Dish Network hook-up within a few years. The American mind (I generalize here) continues its descent into apathy, socialism, and self-degradation. I am not optimistic when I gaze upon the landscape of America, and I very much believe we're well past our peak with regard to morality. I view us as travelling down the same path as the Roman empire. I'm sure most here wouldn't agree with that, but I've already stated that I'm out of the mainstream of American thought. For this, I am glad. I was born about 100 years too late. What I see happening in track and field is only reflects America and the world at large. It saddens me to watch people within the track and field community freely give up control over their own bodies and subject themselves to intrusive drug tests that are conducted under the premise that the athlete must prove him/herself "clean". This line of thought clearly goes against traditional American jurisprudence that the "state" must have evidence to bring charges against a person. It also puts the burden of proof of innocence on the athlete instead of the state (USATF, IAAF, IOC, etc.). Of course, the socialists that currently dominate the international and national governing bodies of many sports have no problem placing such burdens on the athletes. It has also become evident that many people here on this board are more than willing to give up their individual freedom of control over their own body by subjecting themselves to these tests. I see this attitude within sport also permeating our culture at large and it depresses me to watch people give more and more control over their own lives to the whims of the state. Sheep to the slaughter. Lambs to be killed. If you think I'm being harsh in my assessment, maybe I am. I'd much prefer to be happy and positive in what I see in America (and the world to a lesser degree), but I can't based upon what I see in the world. Socialism, state control, the giving away of freedoms that were so costly in purchasing seem to be the destination of mankind. Most are not more than sheeple. Happy, go-lucky sheeple. But nonetheless, sheeple.

I am depressed.

Kurt