Austin American Statesman dropped coverage of quite a few austin area teams

[gtownfan]

Discovered Friday that the Statesman has dropped coverage for lots of Austin area teams that they have covered for a long time. Such as La Grange, Giddings, Cameron, Lexington, Rogers, Rockdale, to name a few to the east, but lots of them in the hill country. They are only covering teams from 5 counties: Bastrop, Hays, Williamson, Travis and Burnet.

They are not reporting scores unless one of the teams from their 5 county coverage area is involved and have dropped the team pages of all outside the coverage area.

Thanks goodness for sites like 3A down low!!!!

[Matthew328]

Not much of a surprise

[Old Green]

San Antonio Express did the same thing several years ago if you weren't in adjoinig counties. This year they dropped even regional preview coverage.

[c-town_balla]

I talked to Danny Davis recently and he was disappointed that it came to that.

It sounds like the decision came down from well above the sports desk.

[HEMOTOXIC]

The Houston Chronicle does that also.......Although Navasota is only 45 minutes from North Houston, there's no coverage in the Chronicle...I.E. area rankings, etc.
The Bryan/College Station Eagle does cover Navasota and the rest of the Brazos Valley. The Navasota Examiner covers Navasota, Anderson-Shiro, and Iola.

[Roughneck93]

The Houston Chronicle does that also.......Although Navasota is only 45 minutes from North Houston, there's no coverage in the Chronicle...I.E. area rankings, etc.
The Bryan/College Station Eagle does cover Navasota and the rest of the Brazos Valley. The Navasota Examiner covers Navasota, Anderson-Shiro, and Iola.

Check out the AP Polls on chron.com. Notice how all the "Houston area" teams are listed in bold letters? :vrycnfsd:

http://blog.chron.com/prepsports/2012/09/ap-poll-navasota-takes-over-top-spot-in-3a-katy-to-no-2-in-5a/

[HEMOTOXIC]

Check out the AP Polls on chron.com. Notice how all the "Houston area" teams are listed in bold letters? :vrycnfsd:

http://blog.chron.com/prepsports/2012/09/ap-poll-navasota-takes-over-top-spot-in-3a-katy-to-no-2-in-5a/

Yeah, they will bold Navasota in the AP poll, but other than that, that's it.

[Roughneck93]

Yeah, they will bold Navasota in the AP poll, but other than that, that's it.

Weird how they do that. Always considered Navasota part of the HTown area.

[HEMOTOXIC]

Weird how they do that. Always considered Navasota part of the HTown area.

I did too... I actually contacted the Chronicle about that.. Since we are not in a district, with say, Sealy, Stafford, anymore, we don't get covered. However, the year that our girls made it to the state championship in basketball, the Chronicle did an article on the Lady Rattlers.

[Gontex]

AAS has not covered Gonzales for several years even tho we are only 60 miles out of their area, but those folks still want to sell their newspapers to Gonzales subscribers. I got a call a couple of weeks ago and was asked to subscribe. I asked if they were going to cover us and got no response. A weekly local paper, www.gonzalescannon.com is doing a good job of covering all the schools around Gonzales including Cuero, Yoakum, Shiner, H'ville, Flatonia, Luling, Lockhart and several others. Guess that is as good as it is going to get.

[Matthew328]

Newspapers are dying a slow death, I'm surprised they don't go to a subscription model online....if every newspaper did it then some might surprise

[1st and goal]

Newspapers are dying a slow death, I'm surprised they don't go to a subscription model online....if every newspaper did it then some might surprise

Agreed, but they also mostly lean left like the houston comical and austin UnAmerican snakesman and that's another reason why they are losing subscribership (besides the net). I remember feeling raped and robbed, 10 years ago when I ran a classified in the snakesman.

[Yoe_09]

Newspapers are dying a slow death, I'm surprised they don't go to a subscription model online....if every newspaper did it then some might surprise

The Waco Trib had done something similar to this the past few years. They are now back to free online content it appears.

[regaleagle]

All the newspapers now run their high school coverages like FOOTBALL FOR DUMMIES 101. In the Dallas market, we have a few that are into the high school level and do a good job with their coverage, but for the most part most reporting is second hand stuff garnered from the real experts.....people like us at 3A down low. They get the information, then write the article. Heck, I could do that myself if you wanted to pay me 40K. What am I saying? Gee, I guess I like what I do and still get to be a part of this great yearly adventure called Texas High School football right here on 3A down low.

[Matthew328]

The Waco Trib had done something similar to this the past few years. They are now back to free online content it appears.

It didnt work for the Trib because no one else did it....newspapers as a whole have to band together and do it...they also need to learn to specialize more in local coverage..no one goes to the Waco Trib to read about national news..put your resources in local stuff

[Matthew328]

All the newspapers now run their high school coverages like FOOTBALL FOR DUMMIES 101. In the Dallas market, we have a few that are into the high school level and do a good job with their coverage, but for the most part most reporting is second hand stuff garnered from the real experts.....people like us at 3A down low. They get the information, then write the article. Heck, I could do that myself if you wanted to pay me 40K. What am I saying? Gee, I guess I like what I do and still get to be a part of this great yearly adventure called Texas High School football right here on 3A down low.

Can you give examples of that?? I've worked closely with the DMN guys and I'd tend to disagree with this take.