Jab979 said

In fairness to Dieter, what do you want him to write about?

The basketball team sucks, our football team had 3 wins last year and by the show of attendance at the games, clearly no one cares about baseball.

Do you want him to write an article on how amazing our teams are doing despite losing records in probably all of our sports going on right now (except women's basketball)?

I have to agree, his job is to report on FAU sports and we are not very good at much of anything. He is not paid to be an FAU booster. I just don't see much being posted either way myself anymore and I won't pay for the Sentinals site.

When Ted was the beat reporter, he had one role: FAU. I was hired to do FAU, two counties of college recruiting, website editing, secondary hockey, soccer and baseball, as well as all major on-camera roles.

I'm aware that this leaves FAU relatively neglected, but it's not my decision. My time is allocated  by my editors, and right now, save for conference realignments (something I'd argue I'm plugged in on) there's little going on at FAU that's making hay. I can only pitch so many stories, only to get shut down.
I don't know where we'll be at after NSD. I know my hockey commitments ramp up, as with my baseball ones. I'm working on two bigger stories, one is positive. The other? Well, it won't help me with Tim or Dusky.
I suppose this is the business. FAU traffic was dismal this year. I've taken personal responsibility for that, but the numbers were actually up from in the past.
If you guys do have a problem with how I do my job, please call me. I need to know that sort of thing. If there's a story I'm missing, email or call. I respond to everything.
I appreciate the passion. Throw it my way anytime.

Dieter

Ps. The Dooley header wasn't my call, but I wasn't going to get fired over that.

I think this is a classy response from D. I was aware that he had some other duties but did not know he had that many. Makes sense why it's not a daily blog now. Did Ted have the same duties? I'm surprised he hasn't chimed in yet.

Not surprised FAU traffic was dismal this year however, what with a 3-9 football team and an (arguably) underperforming basketball team. Baseball may generate some stories but college baseball is, IMO, much more of a niche sport.

What were the "big" FAU stories of the last six months, really? FAU nearly flops vs Wagner, German ruled ineligible, Wilbert and team show good progress, 24-hour tailgate excitement tempered by rainy Shula Bowl loss, Duron Carter leaves FAU, basketball nearly flops vs Lynn, Gantt a Top 5 scorer nationally, FAU moves to CUSA (and moves early), Tennis and soccer coaches out, now recruiting news. So about 10 good stories over the course of 6-7 months? And not a whole lot of good news among them.

Not schocking that the traffic for FAU content is dismal (4 wins over 2 years won't get you a lot of attention), but my guess is that traffic for a lot of things is down on the Sentinel site….especially since they now want people to pay for content.

I know the way I get news has completely changed from just 3 or 4 years ago.  Most of my news (including FAU news) is from Twitter, message boards, or blogs.  I haven't read a game story about any sport in years.  I know I'm not alone in this and that is a big problem for the newspaper business.

I'm not one of the people that accuses Dieter or any writer of being negative about a school on purpose, but it's always been the case in sports journalism that negative stories sell.  Less people will read the positive article.  A success story is just not as interesting as "will coach X get fired" or "what player will get traded/cut". 

Traffic, truthfully, has done well lately. Better than I expected, my a long margin. The paper is healthy, and while we understand that you guys aren't keen on paying for it online, we don't exactly make it hard for you to steal it (you can ask me, if you want.)

There's a saying us journalists are fond of, especially those freelancers: "If you're good at something, never give it away for free."

The first part of that statement can be debated, but we're not leaving the second part to interpretation. This is not a whim thing — this is the new world order. The mistake isn't charging for content, in my opinion — it was giving away our product for free in the first place.

–The "dismal" comment played off my expectation, not my editors'. Perhaps I'm delusional, but I had higher hopes.

–As for right now, I'm knee-deep in recruiting, and not solely of the FAU variety (would I be able to keep up with Andrew on that? Maybe if that was my only responsibility — he's doing great.) Broward and Palm Beach keep me plenty occupied, and my editors would prefer if I focused more on Miami recruiting than FAU, it appeals to more of our readers. That's the nature of the beast. Trust me though, I've accrued the phone numbers of every 2013 Owl, and have already used them.

Before recruiting purgatory, I was covering the FIU coaching search, as well as being the Notre Dame and NIU beat writer for BCS coverage. As I mentioned before, my editors will be ramping up my Panthers, Marlins and whatever else needs to be covered responsibilities once this recruiting stuff is done.

Overall, you have to trust me, I'm still an advocate for FAU coverage. But the nature of the business has changed, and my job, to fully disclose, is not FAU beat writer. I'm a college sports writer who delves into general assignment. Save for when teams are great and are the talk of the town, football season will be the only time where FAU is my primary beat.

In the meantime, I'll do a better job in making sure that FAU doesn't appear neglected on the site. While it isn't prescribed directly by the bosses to do FAU things, I owe that to the people who read regularly. I apologize for the perceived slight. Thanks for reading, and please, let me know what I can do to help continue that relationship.

Keep it up! You can't please everyone.

dkurtenbach said

Traffic, truthfully, has done well lately. Better than I expected, my a long margin. The paper is healthy, and while we understand that you guys aren't keen on paying for it online, we don't exactly make it hard for you to steal it (you can ask me, if you want.)

Yeah I figured out how to do that a while ago. Was hoping they'd never find out and try and fix it. I often read the NY Papers, being that I'm from up there. Newsday only gives you a glimpse of the article. If you want to read the rest you have to pay for it.

Not sure what the PBP does because they suck and I refuse to go on their website.

I know everyone wishes Dieter would cover us more, but at least he does a better job than whatever that joke of a writer at the post covering FAU does

I read the SS but from time to time check our the recruiting stories on PBP. The are SOOOOO pro UF and SOOOO negative FAU.  The latest was a small one liner, "FAU loses Lloyd Howard to W. Arizona." This line makes it sound like Bam chose W Arizona or W Arizona out recruited us. The reality is Howard didn't qualify and needs to go the juco route. One more line with a little more info would have changed everything. But the geniuses at PBP couldn't quite get it right. No wonder the news print business is going under.

dkurtenbach said

When Ted was the beat reporter, he had one role: FAU. I was hired to do FAU, two counties of college recruiting, website editing, secondary hockey, soccer and baseball, as well as all major on-camera roles.

I'm aware that this leaves FAU relatively neglected, but it's not my decision. My time is allocated  by my editors, and right now, save for conference realignments (something I'd argue I'm plugged in on) there's little going on at FAU that's making hay. I can only pitch so many stories, only to get shut down.
I don't know where we'll be at after NSD. I know my hockey commitments ramp up, as with my baseball ones. I'm working on two bigger stories, one is positive. The other? Well, it won't help me with Tim or Dusky.
I suppose this is the business. FAU traffic was dismal this year. I've taken personal responsibility for that, but the numbers were actually up from in the past.
If you guys do have a problem with how I do my job, please call me. I need to know that sort of thing. If there's a story I'm missing, email or call. I respond to everything.
I appreciate the passion. Throw it my way anytime.

Dieter

Ps. The Dooley header wasn't my call, but I wasn't going to get fired over that.

To clarify…I am well aware that you are not an employee of FAU so I do not believe you have to be all rosey and cheery in your coverage of FAU or FAU sports.  I am wanting to see professionalism and the avoidance of cheep shots.  I think there is a difference in cheep shots and criticism of issues that need to be criticize.  I am as intersested as anyone else in appropriate criticism of the program.  If two of our players tweeted how they took a recruit of ours to a strip club, I would personally hand you the shovel to first smack them behind the heads and then let you bury them with it.

As for having problems with how you do your job I can really say I have only one (I may disagree with your opinions from time to time, I am ok with that, my beef is cheep shots)….the use of pictures on the Sun Sentinel site and Paper!  The picture used, was a picture I took and no permission was ever given.  Since it was posted in one of my postings, I would expect either a request for use from me or the site or at a minimum a citing of fauowlsnest.com.  I wrote you and the editors of the paper at the time with no response from either!  So if you will reply to peoples complaints in the future, I think that will go a long way.

Finally…the main point of me starting this thread was the lack of regular postings to the SS.com blog.  Yes we were spoiled by Ted and the content he delivered (whether you liked it or not) on a daily basis, I understand that.  When you introduced yourself to us you said there was a lot of things you had to fix and reorganize with the blog and that you were looking to build something.  I was all for that…the only request I have is try to get some sort of regular posting going.  I am glad to hear the traffic was better than other years…I think with some more consistent content it could definitely grow.  I appologize if I came off the wrong way and I wasn't aware of your other duties and it explains what is going on.  But having said that why can't I demand something that I love and care about be covered more??  Take care.

cheap shots