NO Coverage

[tjbison]

Check this out and see if you can see any stories that are missing:



http://www.bismarcktribune.com/sports/college/



if you need help they have to do with Bison:banghead:

[MNLonghorn10]

pretty sad the capitol of north dakota's newspaper can't even cover one of the 2 largest universities in the state.

doesn't help that its 3 hours east, but still..pathetic

[lakesbison]

WOW, and to think Lou sent me a loooong email explaining that they will be trying in the new year to make NDSU sports a priority.

FAIL. everyone email him!!



(Lou.Babiarz@bismarcktribune.com)
Sent: Fri 1/08/10 6:16 AM
To: John Irby (John.Irby@bismarcktribune.com); Brian Kroshus (Brian.Kroshus@bismarcktribune.com)


Nobody here has a bias against NDSU, although I'm guessing that since you pulled this complaint off the Bison message board, you may have a bias toward NDSU? :)
Seriously, we have plenty of interest in NDSU, and so do our readers. We know that. The main problem is manpower. I would love to have a reporter on the eastern part of the state and divide up that person's time between doing NDSU and UND stories, but the money just isn't there. We have our hands full (and then some) covering local sports. That's why we have to rely on AP for most of our coverage of UND and NDSU sports. Everybody on our staff is instructed to run EVERY story AP moves on NDSU and UND sports. When we can, we do try to supplement that with local coverage. We staff all NDSU home football games. We run season previews of football every year. When the Bison went to the NCAA basketball tournament, they were splashed all over our front page as the main story a bunch of times. We did one story with a local angle (U-Mary coaches Fred Fridley and Juno Pintar played there). We were going to do another Lucas Moormann but AP moved a feature first, so we used that. When we have ahletes from the area do well at NDSU, we try to features on them or at least include them in notebooks, and we're going to try to do more of that.
The point about the Web site is well taken. Finding the info about NDSU and UND can be tricky. It's one of many problems with the site, and we don't have control over everything on it. But that doesn't mean the content isn't in the paper.
Somebody else brought the complaints on the message board about the columns to my attention, and I think the problem is some Bison fans are misinterpreting what they are meant to be. They are the top five stories in our coverage area - hence the emphasis on Bismarck-area stories. It is, after all, the Bismarck Tribune.
Sometimes something that happens outside the area is of great enough interest to our readers that it cracks our top fives - for instance the Bison going to the NCAA basketball tournament, UND winning a national hockey championship, NDSU beating Minnesota in football, etc. When AP sends out a ballot for top 10 N.D. sports stories, for instance (and we didn't get one this year), my votes are entirely different. Bison softball would be a natural for that. For this, I didn't even give the softball team a second thought. I even left off Dagny Knutson breaking national swimming records off the list.
We're also striving for variety, which is why I don't try to influence the other writers' decisions. If all five of us are going to pick the same stories, there's really not much point. That's why we're likely to choose stuff from our respective beats. For example, I'm more likely to pick a Wizards story (not this year), while Mike is more likely to pick Class B and Cindy college.
Anyway, if you think this is a Bismarck vs. Fargo thing, it's not. In this case, it's a local news thing.

Thanks for writing,
Lou

[onbison09]

Well United Tribes women's basketball is HUGE :hide:. And in their defense, it's not like anything big happened at NDSU last night. :banghead:

[aces1180]

WOW, and to think Lou sent me a loooong email explaining that they will be trying in the new year to make NDSU sports a priority.

FAIL. everyone email him!!



(Lou.Babiarz@bismarcktribune.com)
Sent: Fri 1/08/10 6:16 AM
To: John Irby (John.Irby@bismarcktribune.com); Brian Kroshus (Brian.Kroshus@bismarcktribune.com)


Nobody here has a bias against NDSU, although I'm guessing that since you pulled this complaint off the Bison message board, you may have a bias toward NDSU? :)
Seriously, we have plenty of interest in NDSU, and so do our readers. We know that. The main problem is manpower. I would love to have a reporter on the eastern part of the state and divide up that person's time between doing NDSU and UND stories, but the money just isn't there. We have our hands full (and then some) covering local sports. That's why we have to rely on AP for most of our coverage of UND and NDSU sports. Everybody on our staff is instructed to run EVERY story AP moves on NDSU and UND sports. When we can, we do try to supplement that with local coverage. We staff all NDSU home football games. We run season previews of football every year. When the Bison went to the NCAA basketball tournament, they were splashed all over our front page as the main story a bunch of times. We did one story with a local angle (U-Mary coaches Fred Fridley and Juno Pintar played there). We were going to do another Lucas Moormann but AP moved a feature first, so we used that. When we have ahletes from the area do well at NDSU, we try to features on them or at least include them in notebooks, and we're going to try to do more of that.
The point about the Web site is well taken. Finding the info about NDSU and UND can be tricky. It's one of many problems with the site, and we don't have control over everything on it. But that doesn't mean the content isn't in the paper.
Somebody else brought the complaints on the message board about the columns to my attention, and I think the problem is some Bison fans are misinterpreting what they are meant to be. They are the top five stories in our coverage area - hence the emphasis on Bismarck-area stories. It is, after all, the Bismarck Tribune.
Sometimes something that happens outside the area is of great enough interest to our readers that it cracks our top fives - for instance the Bison going to the NCAA basketball tournament, UND winning a national hockey championship, NDSU beating Minnesota in football, etc. When AP sends out a ballot for top 10 N.D. sports stories, for instance (and we didn't get one this year), my votes are entirely different. Bison softball would be a natural for that. For this, I didn't even give the softball team a second thought. I even left off Dagny Knutson breaking national swimming records off the list.
We're also striving for variety, which is why I don't try to influence the other writers' decisions. If all five of us are going to pick the same stories, there's really not much point. That's why we're likely to choose stuff from our respective beats. For example, I'm more likely to pick a Wizards story (not this year), while Mike is more likely to pick Class B and Cindy college.
Anyway, if you think this is a Bismarck vs. Fargo thing, it's not. In this case, it's a local news thing.

Thanks for writing,
Lou

I worked with and for Lou at the Tribune back in 1998 and 2001, he's a good guy. He's right that a lot of coverage doesn't make the site and that's a shame. But being from Mandan, I see the paper when I am back visiting my parents and NDSU is well represented in the print version. He's right, that's manpower is an issue...I mean, they hire a special Fargo correspondent to cover all the Bison football home games, so they do go out of their way to give it a different spin than Dave Kolpack's AP version. Hell, I was the stringer for the 2001 season and it was a great opportunity for me. And unlike the Fargo Forum, the Tribune takes pride in covering HS sports better than any other paper in the region. It's their niche and they should be proud of that...Would I like more coverage, yes, but I also know where to get Bison information. Heck, my dad used to go to M&H and buy the Sunday Forum when I was a kid to get more Bison news...That's what most Bison fans did before the Internet was popular.

[North Side]

Bismarck Trib. is bad, the sport section is usually all AP stories...but other than High School and Wizards bball I guess there isnt much local sports for them. It wouldnt hurt them at all to give the colleges some more press.