Local Newspaper coverage of the Intermediate Championship

[hard2watch]

I just want to say i think its a disgrace at the lack of coverage or reviews on the Offaly Intermediate and Junior Championships..Even the Senior coverage is minimal.I do read both the Leinster Leader in Kildare and the Meath Chronicle and its always very in depth towards any game played in the adult Championship from Senior to Junior level.Im not asking for a 3 page spread on each game but i think in order for the interest to increase in these championships and in fairness to all the players (who start training at the same time senior teams do and just as committed too) managements and supporters its not much to ask these sports reporters to show a bit more interest in these games and give these players a bit more to play for..I really dont think its much to ask for.What does anyone think of my opinion on this subject?

[Lone Shark]

I'll chime in here seeing as I'd be moderately au fait with the lie of the land when it comes to local media.


First up, Offaly will always suffer for the proliferation of different newspapers in the county. The two counties you picked there have clear market leaders in terms of which paper everyone reads, and each have roughly double the population of Offaly. Here we have a Tullamore Tribune that leads the market but isn't dominant, a Midland Tribune that is as much about North Tipp as it is South Offaly, an Offaly Express, an Offaly Independent free paper, and an Offaly Topic. That's a lot of newsprint for a small county, way more than any other county/area of it's size.

What that means is that you have a lot of papers fighting for market share, and cutting costs down to the bone. The only way to cover intermediate championships is to have a lot of freelancers, and firstly those guys are hard to get (ones that can write well and accurately capture the text and tone of a game anyway), while secondly the costs would be high, and when you aren't getting five figure circulation, it's unjustifiable. Most papers have only one staffer, or in the case of the Indo, none at all. No Offaly paper would get anything like the advertising revenue of the Leinster Leader or the Chronicle, so expecting them to provide coverage on a par is unrealistic.

It should also be noted too that in those other counties you mention, intermediate and junior football gets a run, but coverage of hurling is very minimal. Here papers have to cover both sports - and our intermediate hurling championship suffers for the fact that many of the key players are the second string teams of the bigger senior clubs. You obviously would be interested based on your post, but a lot of people wouldn't be. I'd say you could count very easily the number of people in Offaly who would have an interest in Kilcormac/Killoughey vs Crinkill hurling, and would also want to read about Rhode vs Clonmore Harps in the intermediate football championship.

Finally, from the newspapers' point of view, additional pages are additional cost. Any decent editor will tell you that they have to cut stuff every week in order to fit into the number of pages available, so unless you're talking about an online paper where "space" doesn't cost, then you have another issue here.

We'd all like to see more content and rest assured that if I got back into a full time job in one of the papers around, there are a lot of things I'd love to introduce, including more match coverage and quicker reporting. However in this instance an Offaly paper stretching themselves to cover intermediate games would be a dangerous gamble, and one with very little payoff. Let's face it, people might complain about their paper not providing everything that they want, but they still buy it. There aren't too many extra buyers out there who don't pick up a paper now, but would do if intermediate/junior championships were covered.

[High School Musical]

And that answers that.

End of thread!

[durra1]

Come on now.

There are far more important things for North Offaly local newspapers to cover ahead of local sport.

Such as ..

• Latest elected representative of the Cowen dynasty plants a tree.
• Latest elected representative of the Cowen dynasty has a few pints in Clara.
• Latest elected representative of the Cowen dynasty visits littered town park.
• Latest elected representative of the Cowen dynasty opens pitch.

Or failing the availability of an immediate family member ..

• Latest publically paid representative of the elected representative of the Cowen dynasty plants a tree.
• Latest publically paid representative of the elected representative of the Cowen dynasty has a few pints in Clara
• Latest publically paid representative of the elected representative of the Cowen dynasty visits littered town park.
• Latest publically paid representative of the elected representative of the Cowen dynasty opens pitch.

For the Midland Tribune, substitute ‘Lowry’ for ‘Cowen’ and ‘Thurles’ for Clara.

[john locke]

Thereorthereabouts ....... please read above ... now thats funny

[hard2watch]

Fair enough Lone shark,i needed a straight answer and thats what you gave me,thanks.

[Lone Shark]

Last Saturday I picked up a copy of Gaelic Life, and I have to say it's a great read. I'd be unusual in that partially for work reasons and partially for personal reasons I'd be happy to read a newspaper based on club activity all across Ulster, and the thought struck me - would people buy such a paper if it was based on Leinster games?

I know Ulster people are unusual in that they have a real thing about supporting their own province, something that's usually absent in Leinster, but I'd say it would take something along those lines before you'd see any kind of analysis of intermediate and junior championships.

[offalyman]

Answer me this so lone shark as you seem to know everything......the offaly express covers little or nothing on junior or inter matches,yet its sister newspaper the leinster express,(laois express) covers every laois junior and inter champ matches.....it just seems to me the papers in offaly couldnt be bothered.

[Lone Shark]

Answer me this so lone shark as you seem to know everything......the offaly express covers little or nothing on junior or inter matches,yet its sister newspaper the leinster express,(laois express) covers every laois junior and inter champ matches.....it just seems to me the papers in offaly couldnt be bothered.

Hardly!

But anyway, the answer is simple - the Leinster Express has a much larger circulation, and would be the main paper in Laois. It would have much bigger advertising revenue, and thus can afford to spend a lot more on freelancers. It'll be interesting to see if things change when this Laois Press gets released in October, but for the moment there is a lot more money and thus a lot more staff available to the Leinster version of the Express.

You'll have to excuse me in that I'm not au fait with the Leinster Express on a weekly basis - do they cover Junior football and hurling, group stages and all, or just knockouts?

Things are just spread too thinly in Offaly, and crucially, in a period of retrenchment, no paper is going to go out and spend more at a time when they're all just hanging on by their fingernails. I guarantee you the staff of the Offaly Express is stretched at the moment, can't be bothered is certainly not the case.

[Heshs Umpire]

You'll have to excuse me in that I'm not au fait with the Leinster Express on a weekly basis - do they cover Junior football and hurling, group stages and all, or just knockouts?

No, they do a good enough job on intermediate but junior A, B and C are virtually ignored except for the finals.

[Clontotan]

Seems there is a very simple resolution to this issue - if you go to a junior or intermediate game, take 5 minutes when you get home to do a match report from what you can remember from the game and post it here!! i agree that coverage in the press is poor, but isn't this site partially designed to enable people worldwide access to gaa action in offaly, i'm sure there are plenty people away from home that'd love to read about a match their club was involved in, i know that to do so with the midland tribune you have to subscribe!