LOCAL MEDIA COVERAGE

by **Drakey** » January 4th, 2020, 10:49 am

Drake gets absolutely no coverage from the local newspaper in Des Moines. I think this is a major reason for slipping attendance. On the Drake message board people post articles from newspapers which cover other Valley schools and there are game stories, game day stories and even articles about the conference and other conference teams. Do the papers from the hometowns of other Valley schools have game day articles? Do they have article about the Valley? Do they cover games? I know Peoria does, and I assume every other paper does as well except for the Des Moines Register. Is there any other school in this situation?

**Sponsor**

by **BigMacAttack** » January 4th, 2020, 11:56 am

Drakey wrote:Drake gets absolutely no coverage from the local newspaper in Des Moines. I think this is a major reason for slipping attendance. On the Drake message board people post articles from newspapers which cover other Valley schools and there are game stories, game day stories and even articles about the conference and other conference teams. Do the papers from the hometowns of other Valley schools have game day articles? Do they have article about the Valley? Do they cover games? I know Peoria does, and I assume every other paper does as well except for the Des Moines Register. Is there any other school in this situation?

Loyola.

by **ACECARD** » January 4th, 2020, 12:23 pm

The Aces have an excellent beat writer, and he covers every game for the Courier & Press. The only problem is that if the game is after 6:00 PM we don't see it until two days later. Anything sooner than that we have to get on the Internet.

by **DUBulldog** » January 4th, 2020, 12:26 pm

Serious question Drakey.....are newspapers even relevant anymore? I know they are for people of our generation, but not sure if they are overall. Of course, the average Drake fan is our age or older, so it might still be the primary source of info for a lot of DU fans.

by **musiccitybulldog** » January 4th, 2020, 3:42 pm

The problem I see with larger newspapers, the sports coverage is usually little more than 2 paragraphs to a story. Once in a while a human interest story. It gets to the point you don't even look. The Courier Press did a good job on the Mo State game and replacement coach.

by **glm38** » January 4th, 2020, 5:15 pm

At MSU we have a really good beat writer in Wyatt Wheeler for the News Leader. He does cover the Bears very well with frequent articles as well as the Lady Bears. I do think it really helps create interest. The local TV news broadcasts cover both bears teams very well too. Below is an example of Wyatt's work. He's really outstanding.

https://www.news-leader.com/story/sport ... 727496001/

by **Drakey** » January 4th, 2020, 7:44 pm

musiccitybulldog wrote:The problem I see with larger newspapers, the sports coverage is usually little more than 2 paragraphs to a story. Once in a while a human interest story. It gets to the point you don't even look. The Courier Press did a good job on the Mo State game and replacement coach.

We have sports coverage. Big articles. But they are about things like an Iowa State assistant coach taking a trip to Missouri. Or maybe an article about a player Iowa State has offered and his relationship with his high school science teacher.

I don't know if newspapers are relevant, but how else can any casual fan know that Drake even exists or is playing a game?

by **MVCfans** » January 5th, 2020, 9:43 am

Print newspapers are dying and there's no way refuting that. Budgets have been clipped resulting in good writers being pink slipped all over the country. What local sports coverage exists often panders to the masses, which in Des Moines is likely going to be Iowa State or maybe Iowa coverage. Larger schools with bigger alumni bases who will buy more papers and click more links online. Unfortunately, things probably will get worse before they get better.

by **E-Villan** » January 5th, 2020, 10:54 am

glm38 wrote:At MSU we have a really good beat writer in Wyatt Wheeler for the News Leader. He does cover the Bears very well with frequent articles as well as the Lady Bears. I do think it really helps create interest. The local TV news broadcasts cover both bears teams very well too. Below is an example of Wyatt's work. He's really outstanding.

https://www.news-leader.com/story/sport ... 727496001/

I agree on Wyatt. He is quickly becoming one of my favorite opposing beat writers. I like Todd Golden (ISUB), Paul Oren (Valpo0 and Todd Hefferman(SIU) as well. Chad does a good job for us, and like musiccitybulldog said, has been covering the McCarty ordeal pretty solidly.

When I have tried to find info on Drake, I too noticed that the beat writer assigned to them also was assigned to both Iowa and Iowa State. That's tough in a town the size of Des Moines to split the beat writer like that. Obviously being the largest city in the state as well as state capitol, many alumns from the large state colleges are going to gravitate there. For years, Butler had the same issue in Indy with all the Indiana and Purdue alumni and coverage. Even with their success, they often still take 3rd fiddle in the Indianapolis media.

by **BCPanther** » January 5th, 2020, 10:57 am

Actually the Register has picked UNI over Drake which is total bullshit.

Dargan Southard covers UNI for both the Register and Iowa City Press Citizen (all owned by garbage company Gannett).

UNI has Nick Petaros (@NickAtCourier) for the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, Cole Bair (@realcolebair) for the Cedar Rapids Gazette and Dargan Southard (@Dargan_Southard) all on the beat.

Bair is my personal favorite of the bunch but the other two do a fine job too.