Post by jackl on Aug 4, 2016 13:15:52 GMT -6
Zimmer said on his live chat yesterday that Mick was on vacation until yesterday. EDIT: I had a mistake here about which stories were displayed on the Argus site. That's my fault. Either way, obviously, yes, the "one story per day" thing probably would've been nice from a consistent media impression standpoint, but I'm guessing Mick had to crank them out so they'd be out by the time the big huge print edition preview section dropped. That's just a guess though.
If anyone's upset that the dude took a vacation, there's always going to be a "bad time" for him to take a week or two off, particularly in an era when people want continual news coverage of the topics that interest them specifically.
Funny that your coach complained about it in a public place.
As someone who is outside looking in at both schools' coverage, the bottom line is that, whether or not most USD fans care to hear it, SDSU has generally (and I emphasize generally) accomplished more newsworthy feats in the athletics realm than USD, and, also generally, has a larger fan base. Even if the Argus didn't try to keep things even/balanced between the two schools (which I actually think they do a reasonable job of, under the circumstances), at some point it makes more sense to favor SDSU with more/better coverage if both schools aren't equally competitive.
If Augie were for some reason getting more coverage USD, everyone on here would be saying, "Why on earth does Augie get more coverage than USD?!?!" That's because USD, overall, deserves more substantial coverage than Augie (I won't say better coverage because I think Ian Frazer does a solid job for Augie and USF, and I would personally prefer him over Mick even if we had the chance to switch the two). Frankly, based on overall athletic achievements and the size of the reader base, I don't think it would be horribly unreasonable for SDSU to get slightly preferential treatment over USD.
The Argus isn't obligated to cover both schools dead evenly on a 50/50 split. If SDSU were to have the most shocking drop-off in athletics ever and suddenly be finishing at the bottom of the standings in every sport for the next 10 years and USD was finishing 1st in every sport, the USD fan base wouldn't be clamoring to keep the coverage even between the two. You'd say, "That makes sense...they're not as good as we are, so we should get more/better coverage."
You can argue that both schools are pretty even, and they are definitely comparable (hence the pretty much even coverage, in my more objective opinion) but last year your men's basketball team was a couple of losses away from not even making the 8-team Summit League Tournament cut. There shouldn't be an expectation that they get "equal coverage" with a team that tied for first in the conference. People don't like to read about losses in the paper. Be honest, after a Coyote loss of a team you follow closely, do you make a strong effort to read the Argus game recap stories the same way you try to read them after wins? If you can all honestly say yes to that, then you're better fans than the average fan, I suppose. For the most part, people like to read about their teams' wins more than their teams' losses. And if people don't want to read stories about losses, and a team keeps losing (like your basketball team), it makes sense to give more space and stories to the team that people are buying papers and clicking links to read about.
On the flip side, I felt like your women's basketball team received borderline equal coverage with SDSU's all season. Why? Because they were both near the top of the standings and were both consistently generating stories of interest.
The same thing is reflected in the live chats. People complain that Mick doesn't put as much effort into his work, but for goodness' sake... you have to wait 17 minutes for your questions to go through on Zimmer's live chats because so many SDSU fans show up and participate. On Mick's, it's a surprise to see more than 4-5 people asking questions, if that. Half the time there are 8 or 9 minute stretches where no questions come in. That's not Mick's fault.
Sorry, it's been awhile since I had a chance to expand on something that I enjoyed contemplating and thinking about a little bit. This is one of those times and topics. I've defended Zimmer in the past on the SDSU boards too because, shockingly, the SDSU fans whine about his coverage all season long. It's ridiculous.
Anyway, I understand why people would be frustrated about the timing issue of these football preview stories, but, overall Cousin Eddie seems to be the only one on here who I think is looking at it reasonably. Just my thoughts. Bash away.
tl;dr. Also didn't read it because I don't give a shit what an Augie fan thinks