so, many of you know that i'm a bit of a blog freak these days. on an average day, i hit up most of the blogs/sites in my sidebar, about 18 of the sites. there are also another 8 or so blogs that i read daily, some of which i draw stories from.
anyway, one of the blogs that i read often is the fresno bee's blog, the beehive. i really dig mike oz's music updates, flyers, and also his desire to start a blog war. call me soldier boy, but i won't be doing any superman. that might make sense to three of you. i also like h.mac's fresno take on what the gossip rags are reporting, and hope she's able to find some fresno celebs doing something. donald munroe, one of their movie guys, also has interesting posts here and there. right now, there's one up about airport security.
anyway, i commend the bee for having bloggers on staff, or at least getting some pay for what they do. the other day, i realized that in the sidebar of the beehive was links to the bee's other blogs, one of which is the sports buzz. as you can tell by the title of this post, i'm not impressed with what they do. i clicked on it for the first time on jan 4 or 5, and it was all dominated by fresno state sports. now, i didn't go there, and i really don't care much about what they do, but i understand that a large portion of fresno does. i get that. well, on the 7th the sports buzz posted a story about the patriots, asking if people wanted them to go 19-0. i commented that i did want to see that, as well as challenged the sports buzz to write more about things not fresno state.
their reply, "Ed, your point is well taken about sports other than Fresno State. One of our goals is to get the community chatting and exchanging ideas. I've found that posts on topics outside of Fresno State teams get little or no comments. Our community of readers tend to respond to things about the Bulldogs, as they should. But, we will make more effort to have a variety of topics. Thanks for contributing to our blog."
so, their claim is that their readers respond to all this fsu business. and that is why in the months of october to january they had less than 9 stories (i think it was 6 when i counted) about something other than fsu sports. but, i don't see their claim about people responding holding up. why do i say that, no comments on most every post. and yet, the one i commented on, about the nfl, has 7. that is one less than the comments on every fresno state related post (27 so far) in january combined. there's a post up about last weekend's nfl matches that currently has five comments. so, two nfl posts, 12 comments. 27 fresno state posts, 8 comments.
who's getting more response?
this got me thinking, what other fresno sports might they be covering? i saw some talk of high school football, so i'm guessing they are covering other high school sports as well.
fresno fuego? zero posts. nil. really, a team that won it's division, and almost won the entire pdl hasn't even mentioned a warrant?
how about fresno pacific? you know, that other university in fresno. the one that beat usc in basketball a few weeks ago. maybe they mentioned that. or that fresno pacific's women's vb won the national championship and routinely destroys fsu in scrimmages. maybe they mention that fpu's men's soccer team almost won their national championship. let me end the suspense. they don't mention any of that. the only fresno pacific sports comes in mentions of when fpu played fsu in men's basketball in 2006 and 2007. and a brief mention of the fact that the naia nationals for track were there, hidden in an article about a former local runner.
kudos for actually having a story on running.
but still, i feel quite correct in stating that the sports buzz sucks.
4 comments:
I can see how it might be more difficult getting responses for stories that have to do with nfl teams or other colleges teams for example because when you move away from local sports, there are going to be a lot more teams to discuss and so interest would be more split.
Also, there are many other blogs that discuss sports nationwide that you can access versus the few Fresno specfic blogs that are available. However you make a very valid point that Fresno State is not the only school that has sports teams and they should definitely be topics to be discussed. I think with all of the recent lawsuits against Fresno State, the negative news seems to take over when the unfortunate fact is there are schools that arent getting sued and dont have players suspended for committing crimes. Schools like FPU have strong sports programs that are only a blurb on the news.
Oh and I believe it is soulja boy, not soldier boy;)
but kasey, they are getting more responses when they don't write about fresno state.
basically, they get very few comments. so, if their rationale for doing predominantly fsu sports stories is, "we get more response on that," well, they are misguided. at least in the months i scanned through.
i realize that fresno state is the closest thing to a pro team here. well, except for that pro baseball team. and the pro hockey team. but still, in many people's minds, fresno state is the thing around. i get that, i'm fine with them covering mostly fsu, especially when there isn't much else going on. except the falcons right now. and fresno city. and fresno pacific. and high school sports.
i'm not alright when they say that it's what gets responses when really, it doesn't. good stories that provoke thought do. and, of course, asking questions. the nfl posts that got responses, asked reader opinion. and really, the fsu post that got most of the responses (6 of the 8) asked a question as well.
Youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!
See, they're operating under the blogger fallacy that no comments equals no interest.
Also, ummm...if I found a blog that purported to be about sports and 27 out of 29 posts were only about CSUF, you bet your sweet bippie I'd quit reading it.
Blogs don't offer immediate gratification. Dummies.
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