COMMENTARY: Focus Shifts To Local

PREPS, COMMUNITY COVERAGE INCREASES

By CHIP SOUZA <a href="mailto:csouza@nwaonline.net">c

Posted: November 1, 2009 at 1:59 a.m.

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LITTLE ROCK — Ihave a file on my computer labeled “fan mail” and in it, I keep e-mails from readers.

Some of the e-mails are flattering, pat-on-the-back notes.

Others, not so much.

Of the ones that fall into the latter category, most come from readers who want more coverage of this team or that team, questioning why we’d have more on certain schools and not enough on the teams they support.

Boy, do we have good news for you.

As I’m sure you’ve figured out by now, our newspaper has a dramatically different look today.

Gone are national sports like the World Series, pro football news, PGA scores, NASCAR and others. You’ll find all that in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, which now comes packaged with our newspaper.

Today’s sports page also doesn’t contain a game story from last night’s University of Arkansas football game. But more on that later.

Let’s talk about what we do have and what will be our primary focus as we move forward with a new newspaper era in Northwest Arkansas.

Our primary focus will be providing the most comprehensive local sports coverage anywhere. That will include lots of prep sports and lots of community sports.

Don’t think that because we’ve refined our focus that we’ll give you less content. Quite the contrary. We’ll not only be able to give our readers in-depth coverage of the games before they happen, when they happen and after they happen, we’ll also continue to offer trend stories and analysis that go beyond the box scores.

Our preps coverage will be unmatched anywhere in the country. You’ve asked (and often demanded) more local coverage, and now we’ll be able to fulfill that request.

I am pumped to see an increase in the kind of sports news I grew up producing. Prior to 1997, I spent the better part of 13 years at non-daily newspapers where local content was all we did. So this, really, is going back to where I came from, where folks in the community turned to us to get the details on their teams.

We’re going to go deeper than preps and produce more community news on local residents who are out there winning martial artstournaments, burning up the local dirt tracks and playing club lacrosse.

For those kinds of stories, we need your help. Let us know about the exploits of your friends and neighbors.

Now about University of Arkansas sports. We won’t produce the comprehensive daily UA coverage we have in the past. Again, our colleagues at the Democrat-Gazette will have that covered for you. We will provide unique UA features and stories through our partnership with Hawgs Illustrated andour friends at the Arkansas News Bureau.

We want you to meet our local sta◊, which is about as deep and talented as you can get. Get to know them by stopping by to chat with them at the games. Spend some time talking about what kinds of stories you’d like to see.

Feel free to contact me with any story ideas,complaints or compliments. I love hearing from readers. I’ll even come out and speak to your community organization. Just tell me when and where.

Just call or drop me an e-mail anytime. I already have a folder ready to go.

Sports, Pages 7 on 11/01/2009

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