The future of reporting
Okay. So I’m a big USF Bulls fan. Especially football. As such, I follow a lot of news about USF and its upcoming opponents. One of the cool sites I found was a blog from Phillip Marshall, a Huntsville Times reporter, about Auburn (whom USF plays on September 8th). Normally such information would not be worthy of a post here on the Affari Blog… but he posted today about the process. I thought it was worth sharing:
It is indeed a new day in my business.It used to be that, as the Auburn beat writer for The Huntsville Times, I would spend an average day asking questions and observing. I would put what information I could in the newspaper and go on to the next day.
The events of Wednesday show just how much things have changed. It was a little after noon when I ventured into offensive line coach Hugh Nall’s office and asked him about the situation at right tackle. He told me that he had moved freshman Lee Ziemba to the first team.
As recently as last year, that information would have been interesting, but I would have been more than 12 hours from being able to report it. By then, of course, Ziemba would have lined up there at practice and it would have become obvious to all.
But in this age of the 24-hour news cycle, of the Internet and blogs and the like, I went straight to my computer, wrote the story and had out half an hour later.
Perusing other newspapers on the Internet, I saw where my friend Chip Towers of The Atlanta Constitution was actually blogging live from Georgia’s practice. Sometimes you even see newspaper reporters carrying video cameras. As time goes on, you’ll see more blogs and the like. And you’ll see more people looking for unique ways to cover the news and get the attention of readers.
Things have come a long way since I wrote stories on an old black Underwood typewriter.
Now, he still works for a newspaper - but this niche (Auburn atheltics) is narrow enough that he could register a domain (”Tiger Tracking”) sell ads and become a full-time reporter-blogger. News gathering and news reporting is changing, moving into more deliniated niches, rather than an “everything for everyone” kind of news we have today. Marshall’s realization is just the beginning - it’s not quite a new day, more like a new sunrise.
