LOCAL MEDIA COVERAGE

[Adunk33]

Illinois State has a guy from the Pantagraph that has decent coverage during the season. Always has a pregame and post-game article. If you like reporters who publicly complain about "meeting their deadlines" during almost every game, Benson is your guy.

I follow all of the beat writers in the MVC on Twitter, Valpo's Paul Oren gets my nod as the best follow. Golden at INST is good too.

[BCPanther]

UNI is actually up to three beat writers (somehow?)

Nick Petaros-Waterloo/Cedar Falls Courier @NickAtCourier
Cole Bair-Cedar Rapids Gazette @realColeBair (Also hosts a real good UNI podcast 'OnUNI'
Dargan Southard-Des Moines Register @Dargan_Southard

Drakey is right that they will pull Southard to an Iowa game if need be. Cole Bair is actually really good. Nick Petaros doesn't really want the job and pretty much acts like it.

[pafan]

Wait. The Register will send a writer to UNI games regularly but not Drake games? I know Drake has been bad in recent ... uh, decades, but that's weird if I'm reading this thread right.

[Drakey]

I've seen no sign that the Register has beat writer for UNI. They are getting the same coverage as Drake as far as I can tell. When they do write an article about a game, it is by some guy that is assigned to 4 or 5 other things. I don'y know if they are actually full-time reporters.

It sounds like everybody has a reporter assigned to their team in their hometown paper except Drake.

[pafan]

Well, Loyola doesn't have a beat writer. Or at least they didn't last season - maybe the F4 run caused the Tribune to assign one this year?

[glm38]

For MSU our local paper the news leader is owned by Gannett. Coverage of Bears basketball has been up and down over the years but currently it's really good. We have a beat writer Wyatt Wheeler that does a great job.

[BCPanther]

I've seen no sign that the Register has beat writer for UNI. They are getting the same coverage as Drake as far as I can tell. When they do write an article about a game, it is by some guy that is assigned to 4 or 5 other things. I don'y know if they are actually full-time reporters.

It sounds like everybody has a reporter assigned to their team in their hometown paper except Drake.

Dargan Southard was at every UNI Football game this year that we didn't fly to and has been at every home basketball game since the beginning of last year.

[Drakey]

I've seen no sign that the Register has beat writer for UNI. They are getting the same coverage as Drake as far as I can tell. When they do write an article about a game, it is by some guy that is assigned to 4 or 5 other things. I don'y know if they are actually full-time reporters.

It sounds like everybody has a reporter assigned to their team in their hometown paper except Drake.

Dargan Southard was at every UNI Football game this year that we didn't fly to and has been at every home basketball game since the beginning of last year.

Maybe he is a fan. he is not listed as a reporter for the Des Moines Register on their site. when I looked him up it said he covered Iowa sports, prep sports, UNI sports and some other stuff for the Iowa City Press Citizen, some websites and the Des Moines Register. Maybe he is a freelancer. I can't find anybody who is covering Drake at all for the Register. The Drake stories are usually AP or sometimes by an Iowa State reporter.

[Bulldog2323]

A few things:

Dargan Southard works for the Iowa City Press-Citizen which is also a Gannett/USA TODAY NETWORK newspaper. With the Register & Press-Citizen both owned by Gannett they tend to run stories from each other's reporters.

Mark Emmert was the Drake & UNI reporter at the Register until he was laid off in 2013. He's back now, but now he's focused on Iowa coverage. The Drake reporter position was simply eliminated at that time.

All Gannett cares about is digital page views. If print wasn't still over half their revenue they would have stopped printing the paper by now. Iowa and Iowa State bring in numbers, Drake doesn't.

Other things not helping Drake's cause:
--Finishing 7th or worse in conference each year from 2009-2016.
--Drake hasn't sold out a game at the 7,000 seat Knapp Center since 2008. We haven't had a crowd over 6,000 since Wichita State was ranked #1 in 2014. The women have had two games over 6,000 in the last 3 years.

Drake gets good enough to be in the Top 25 nationally, especially if Iowa or Iowa State have a bad year and you'll see Drake coverage. Until then, the Register won't commit the limited hours of their reporters to Drake when they'll get more views from Iowa/Iowa State.

[Drakey]

So to encourage coverage of Drake I should cancel the print edition and read everything online?
Not a mention of yesterday's game in todays Register.