A new reason to advance school websites

I had one of those "WTF" reactions Saturday when tuning in to KKOK Radio for the Morris Area/Chokio-Alberta vs. West Central Area boys basketball tournament game (6AA West). The on-air gentleman (on KMRS) plugged the broadcast about a half hour prior. He noted the game was at the UMM P.E. Center. That's nice, I thought, but that's not the information that was published by the West Central Tribune.
That paper, which I consulted Thursday in search of the essential tourney information, had a pregnant error. They reported that the 6AA West semi-finals and finals would be played at "St. John's University, Collegeville." Well, I thought, that will be a hefty trip for a lot of the fans. But post-season preps play often involves substantial travel - too much in my judgment. We all accept that any state tournament might call on us to travel a fair piece. But not the rounds leading up to it. I remember one year when the Morris Area football team played in Fairmont, down by the Iowa border, in the very first round. The MA-CA boys basketball team was blessed Saturday playing basically "at home," at the local P.E. Center.
The play-by-play radio announcer observed that the fans were indeed packed in. But I had used the cockeyed info from the West Central Tribune in previewing this game on my site. I felt like I had been socked in the gut. Somehow, I guess, the fans get all the right information anyway. So I don't know why we're supposed to rely on the West Central Tribune. Good thing we don't, I guess.
This incident is another illustration among oh so many of the advantages of online-based information over the old spread-too-thin legacy media. Once a newspaper rolls off the presses, you have to accept it for all time. An error will be right there in front of you 50 years from now just like when the ink is fresh.
An error that is committed online can be corrected immediately. I could have corrected my piece if someone had just called me. But I have no idea how many people stop by this site. A local restaurant waitress told me she had come across my stuff when "Googling" for schedule information on the 6A South girls tournament. That encounter revealed for me that fans, no doubt in ever-increasing numbers, are going online looking for prep sports info. It seems unnecessary for them to have to "Google" to find it.
There should be well-established systems online that fans can depend on. Again, as I stressed in a previous post, the school websites could be developed consistently in this regard. There is tremendous inconsistency now.
The Alexandria school website serves as a "how to" example. It's still too much the exception to the rule.
Now, I should emphasize that it isn't necessary for a school employee to put together brackets or anything else substantial for the purposes of announcing a tournament. The people involved with organizing the sub-section and section tournaments could do that themselves. They could dutifully put it online, and then the school websites could just LINK to that. Linking is the currency of the new media. "Click here to view" or "click here to read" etc.
How much sports information is on the Morris newspaper website? I don't know because I've been asked so often to "log in" to read stuff there, I hardly ever check anymore. "Logging in" is so yesterday. So that website can just be crossed off your list.
"Logging in" is basically just a trick for someone to get your email address. Obviously they have some sort of commercial purpose for doing that. I'd rather get emails from my Nigerian friends. Reading their emails at least gives me the impression that someone cares about me (just kidding).
Incredibly, the Thursday error in the West Central Tribune was repeated on Friday. Did no one think to contact them to give them a heads-up? Or does no one rely on the newspaper, period? As a new media advocate I'd like to believe it's the latter.
On Saturday I paid no visit to the newsstand. I often get my West Central Trib at Casey's in Morris where I also get those most essential chocolate covered donuts.
You might be thinking: "How, Brian, can you suggest that newspapers are dying when you yourself buy them?" My answer: Newspapers don't make money on single-copy sales. They depend on advertising, and advertisers are finding more effective and better-targeted options.
The cost of printing and distributing the physical newspaper is becoming one of the biggest millstones around papers' necks. But they have to stay visible with their paper product in order to stay viable at all. I wince when I think of sports parents who will buy a big and bulky "weekend edition" of the Willmar paper, for no other reason then to get a four-paragraph sports article that might include their kid's name. Online is preferable. A parent could print off an article from here (this site) and the type size would be bigger than in a newspaper. It would be a better souvenir.
All these facts of which I speak are going to sink in over time. Gary Donovan of UMM once recalled for me a conversation he had with someone associated with the West Central Tribune. Gary told them "I'm sure you have a hard time getting everything right." He wasn't complaining, he was just indicating that he understood the pressures they faced.
Oh, of course it's hard. I've been there. You have limited time and limited space. The West Central Tribune seeks to cover a wide area, too, so it's a difficult mantle to wear.
Since it's so difficult, let's relieve them of that. In fact, let's just forget about them.
-Brian Williams - Morris mn Minnesota - Morris Area Tigers - bwilly73@yahoo.com