FOX23 Community

Hey folks,

  This is the other goofy looking guy on the high school sports show.  One of the major complaints in high school sports is that the sports outside of football and soccer don't get a lot of coverage.  At FOX23, we try to touch on them all.  You can do that online as well.  Where are the swimming, volleyball, field hockey, cross country and tennis folks??? It's championship time for them too. 

 

Brent Martineau

 

This is Doug Gross, Bethlehem Central girls varsity swim coach.  I was watching the show tonight and noticed there was nothing mentioned about our Section 2 championships.  I saw all those Section 2 placques raised by the other champions and ours is sitting in my Jeep!  We won the Division 1 (big school) Section 2 Swimming and Diving Championships last weekend outdistancing second place Shen by 69 points.  Burnt Hills won the Division 2 title by one point over Queensbury!  Did I get thrown in the pool after our win with no one noticing?!  It was reported in the T-U, Spotlight, Gazzette, and Community news.

Doug,

If you want to get results, email the station general manager.  Bethlehem is a major high school player around here and I'm sure the townspeople are proud of your team's accomplishments.  You don't want to upset the people who spend money on the businesses that advertise on fox23, so the general manager will probably have a word with the sports department.  Although, it's my understanding that fox's general manager just moved here and probably couldn't point to Bethlehem on a map, so don't expect miracles.  Congratulations!!!!!

Actually, the best way to get results is to participate in the process.  Coaches can do this my calling in scores, story ideas and giving us a heads up on when a big meet is on the horizon.  One of the dad's from the Bethlehem team understands this.  He lets us know when there is a big meet, or a story of note.  More often then not, we get out to cover it.   However, we can't cover something we don't know about.  Obviously, we knew about the sectional, but did not get any results reported, so we could not report them to the folks at home.  I hope this prods many coaches and parents to get involved.  The worst thing we can say if you call with a story idea or meet to cover is sorry, we can't get there.  But more often than not, we say thanks and show up.

Also, and this is for the last writer, our general manager is originally from Ballston Spa.

 

Rich

Good to hear your general manager is local.

 

 

But your response begs the questions: Should you really have to lobby for local coverage?  How did the newspapers manage to cover it without being asked?  According to the original poster, NONE of the local TV outlets gave a mention.  Perhaps it just boils down to newspapers producing more thorough content.  This has always been the case.

Thanks for your time.

Just to follow up... lobbying would be the wrong word choice.  Cooperating, or working together might be better.  Informing might be the best word.  You are right in assuming we don't have the staff(not even close) that the newspapers have.  We're not looking for someone to ask us to cover something, just let us know it's going it.

Thanks for the dialogue on this.  I hope it encourages a fan, parent, coach or sport coordinator to give us a call with a story idea or an event to cover.

Rich

Here is a "for example" on this subject. The field hockey folks hardly ever communicate with us. There is an exception or two, namely Burnt Hills (congrats on the season). Anyway, we had someone email in today about Warrensburg leaving for the state final four in Syracuse on Thursday. You can almost get to the equator faster than W'Burg, but thanks to the communication and the timing of the event we have plans to get to Warrensburg on Thursday for their sendoff. That is how it works.
On the swimming subject, there were nine thousand things going on that day -- we would have got it if we could, but we only have so many cameras and we're more apt to go to a place or a sport that we've had contact with. Good thoughts so far!

Newspaper and T.V News are differnet.  One phone call into a newspaper and your done, they write about it (no pictures) and it's covered.  Fox has to go to the event with a reporter and a camera which requires them to be at the event not just the sports desk.  I used to work at a newspaper (not in the capital district).  Even at my old job we never sent someone to every event, the reporter would just go to the big football games ect.  What parents and coaches should do is start calling into Fox 23 and letting them know scores and things going on, just like they do with the newspaper.  Locally, no othe TV station covers high school sports better then Fox23.  Get involved

my problem is that newspaper's and tv station's don't take the time to come to a sporting event to give it some exposure to the community.take for example my daughter play's for ice hockey for the troy/albany ice cats u12 team,she is the goalie.this is not a high school sport this is a community sport for the girls.the ice cats are an all girls hockey league at the knickerbocker arena.i can not tell you how many times i've asked the newspaper's in the area and the tv station's in the area to come and see it,so they can do a story on it.the community does not know enough about this program and the girl teams need players.the troy albany youth hockey association doesn't do enough for the girls,but they do take care of the boys teams called the jr engineers formerly the troy rivermen.so the more the newspapers help the community the more the exposure the better the teams and maybe just maybe the teams can get enough girls,and do alot better than it is now.

Club sports, in general, don't receive enough recognition IMO.

The culture is to focus on high school sports.  It's always been that way and the schools are a community focal point. But for the real sports fan, club sports have superceded scholastic sports.  Most of my experience has been with youth soccer, but I would imagine that hockey and other sports are similar.  The best athletes, best coaching, best and most exciting competition is in the club sport venue.  You can truly appreciate they play there more than you can in the school counterparts. Nowadays, college recruiting comes from club participation and not high schools.  In fact, it is not uncommon for the best athletes in a given sport to eschew the high school version altogether and focus on club sport. Even for the best players that do play high school, the vast majority of their play is at the club level.  High school is fun, but it is not for honing skills or for quality of play.

So, I guess I would like to know if local sport coverage is for the sport itself and the quality of the sport  (highlighting the best athletes, the best play, etc) or is it for the community aspect that high school sports brings?