Chronicle just misses the sport

Jealous, I can only surmise, at other news outlets and their blog thingies, the West Island Chronicle has announced the creation of Sportlight (yes, with an “R”), a “blog” about Montreal’s professional sports teams, the Canadiens, Alouettes and Impact. (It’s also available in French as Montréal en sport)

Sadly, despite their claims of being “experienced” and “up-to-the-minute”, they’re clearly neither. The journalists who write these blogs don’t cover these teams regularly (or at all). They’re just guys who watch hockey on TV and think they’re experts about it.

In other words, it’s just like all those other Habs blogs out there. Not worth seeing unless you know the authors personally.

The problem is that David is trying to slay Goliath on Goliath’s terms. The Gazette’s Habs Inside/Out blog takes advantage of the paper’s access to the team and its reporters’ experience to make it a comprehensive resource. Armchair sports analysts can’t compete with that, so why are they?

I noticed the same problem years ago with student media. Instead of concentrating on university sports where they have the access, time and resources to do a good job (and the lack of competition that would make them the best at what they do), some student newspaper writers prefer to rant about the Habs, doing bad imitations of professional sports writers.

There is no limit to sports that local reporters can cover. Junior teams, college teams, high school teams, all get ignored in big media because there are too many of them and they’re not interesting enough.

The ball is in the court of the local papers to write about local teams. Why is it trying to compete on a level it is guaranteed to lose?

Full disclosure: I work at The Gazette (though I don’t do anything on its Habs blog), and I once interned briefly at the Chronicle.

2 thoughts on “Chronicle just misses the sport

  1. HabsFan29

    “In other words, it’s just like all those other Habs blogs out there. Not worth seeing unless you know the authors personally.”

    Oh, I have been zinged! :-P

    Our Habs blog has up to 1000 uniques a day. They don’t know us all personally. Seems like there must be something there worth seeing.

    I don’t care if that was a throwaway line or not, I would have expected better from someone who understands new media the way you do.

    Reply
  2. Kate M.

    It’s a bit like all the Canadian blogs that comment on U.S. politics, probably because they feel that it’s what the big boys do. And it’s a complete waste of time. If I want commentary on U.S. politics I want to be reading someone who’s there and, what’s more, has a vote there, not somebody sniping from a distance and relying on third or fourth-party information.

    Reply

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