The Philadelphia Daily News is available in Clearwater, Fla., six days per week. The Daily News and the Inquirer are publishing 5,000 newspapers each day of the week for Phillies fans attending spring training in Florida. The St. Petersburg Times is handling the printing.
The Daily News prints Monday through Saturday, and the Inquirer prints on Sunday.
The Inquirer is doing a four-page wrap of the paper with Phillies coverage.
The Daily News is switching out the front and back pages of its regular edition with Phillies-themed covers and also adding more Phillies photos and information.
"Any Phillies fan who buys a Daily News in Clearwater also receives basically the same total sports coverage — high schools, colleges and pros — as someone who purchased the paper in Philly, with the exception of a new front and back page," sports editor Josh Barnett said.
The Times drops copies of the Philadelphia papers wherever they distribute in Clearwater. Papers also are being sold in the ballpark, where the papers have displays to market other products such as the mobile app for baseball.
New sports columnist
The Philadelphia Daily News also introduced a new sports columnist: former Gov. Ed Rendell.
Upon leaving office in January after eight years as governor of Pennsylvania, Rendell began having conversations with the editorial page editor at the Daily News about a weekly column. Rendell, who also is working as an analyst for NBC News, suggested a sports column, though he also can weigh in on political issues in the editorial pages.
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"His primary focus is on the main issues of the day in Philly from a fan's perspective," Barnett said. "He has written about the Super Bowl. the NFL labor situation, the Phillies, college basketball, the 76ers."
Rendell said in an interview with the Daily News that he wanted "the column to be as fun and readable as I can."
"I don't think it has to be earthshaking or overly dramatic," he added. "I want to reflect what the average fan thinks or cares about. … I want it to be fun for me to write and fun for the readers to read."
Barnett said his relationship with Rendell is the same as any editor-writer relationship.
"That is the way he wants it, and we do, too," Barnett said. "It is more than just him writing off the top of his head. He has been doing interviews to gather information as well. We talk on a regular basis about the subject matter, come to an agreement and go from there."
PASSINGS
— Ron Drogo, local sports editor of The Record of Woodland Park, N.J., died Feb. 20 at the age of 61. He worked for much of his career at The Record and prior to that for the Newark Star-Ledger.
— Dan Semoffsky, a writer for the Harrisburg (Pa.) Patriot-News, died Feb. 23 at the age of 61. He joined the Lebanon (Pa.) Daily News in 1979 and covered the Hershey Bears from 1985 until a few days before he died.
NORTHEAST
Amsterdam (N.Y.) Recorder
The sports department won two awards in the New York Newspaper Publishers Association contest.
The section won for Distinguished Sports Coverage and Distinguished Sports Writing, as sports editor Paul Antonelli won his 10th NYNPA award. Adam Shindler now has won three in the last two years.
The Recorder's website now is behind a paywall, but the sports department developed a blog (sidelineguys.recordernews.com) that is free. The blog has a weekly webcast hosted by sports reporters Mark Robarge and Shindler. Daily blogs, video and live Tweets are posted.
The Recorder, after earning an APSE Top 10 award in the under-15,000 division for its 16-page special section previewing the 2010 high school football season, is planning a 24- or 36-page section for August.
Cape Cod Times
The sports section placed first in the Daily 2 class of the New England Newspaper & Press Association contest.
SOUTHEAST
Tuscaloosa (Ala.) News
The newspaper joined forces with Rivals.com to place the Tidesports.com website as the University of Alabama team site on the network beginning March 1.
Sports writers Aaron Suttles and Greg Ostendorf have had their titles and duties changed with Suttles now senior recruiting analyst and Ostendorf as the recruiting analyst. Both work mainly for the pay site.
GREAT PLAINS
Des Moines Register
Alternative story-telling forms were used a lot recently for big events.
The paper previewed the Bears-Packers NFC title game matchup with a two-page spread on the history of the series (click for pdf), using 70 "facts, stats and tidbits" to tell the story.
The paper also took a different approach to tattoos with basketball players from the state's four major colleges telling the story behind their tattoos in a photo/video-driven package. (click for pdf of cover) (click for pdf of doubletruck)
And, for the Super Bowl, the Register turned the Sunday cover on its side to preview the Packers-Steelers matchup. (click for pdf)
Denver Post
Feb. 21 was a busy evening for the sports department of the Denver Post as they tried to report on the trade of Carmelo Anthony.
Going down to the wire, the Post produced a special section on Anthony's time with the Denver Nuggets and the deal with the Knicks. (click for pdf of special section cover)
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"We got a strong indication around 6:15 p.m. that the trade was going down," sports editor Scott Monserud said. "We posted a story online saying the trade was 'imminent.' At that point, we called in extra staffing for the design and rim, in preparation of the trade going down and putting out a live special section."
With permission for extra space for the section, the press room began reconfiguring the run. The deadline was 8 p.m. to pull it off.
"Our extra staffers were in, and we were poised to go forward," Monserud said. "Trouble is, the trade still wasn't finalized."
At 8:05 p.m., they prepared to scrap the plan so the press room could set up for the first edition. Without the special section, the department prepared to redo the main sports section to put the Nuggets coverage in it.
"If the trade went down late at night, we would have had to rip out stories in our regular edition and make do as best we could at that point," Monserud said.
But a few minutes later, Monserud said they received information the trade was "very close" and asked the press room for a few more minutes before deciding whether to scrap the special section.
Soon after, Nuggets reporter Benjamin Hochman confirmed the trade was official.
The story was posted online and work began on the special section.
Page 1A took the main news story and an explanatory, behind-the-scenes story that detailed all that went wrong over the months leading up to the trade. (click for pdf)
"We were able to get a lot of advance work done on Melo and his time in Denver," Monserud said, "but the doggone trade came down so late that night, and almost no one was making themselves available, that a lot of stories we planned, such as Melo reaction, Chauncey Billups' reaction, reaction of the new players and other on how the team moves forward, we were either unable to do or had to adjust on the fly."
Monserud said only coach George Karl and general manager Masai Ujiri made themselves available.
"And, the names kept changing on who might might be involved," Monserud said, "so it was a situation where we were prepared, but needed to move in another direction, if the players were different, or if it was the Nets, not the Knicks, although we were convinced it would be the Knicks by that point Monday night."
SOUTHWEST
The Beaumont Enterprise
Faced with tight deadlines during the fall, which meant some high school football games ended just 15 minutes before deadline, the sports department tried a different approach for the playoffs by sending a second/sideline reporter.
That reporter filed time-stamped Twitter-esque updates throughout the game that appeared collectively in print.
"From the sidelines" hinged on noticing intricate or funny notes that rarely would make it into a game story.
The feature earned a lot of positive response from readers, leading the Enterprise to continue it into the winter for big basketball games. The paper plans to continue the practice for important games when two or more reporters are present.
WEST
The Record (Stockton, Calif.)
With Pacific marking its 100th season of men's basketball, the Record produced a series of articles chronicling the program's history, culminating with an All-Century team compiled with reader input as well as the opinions of the sports staff members and selected experts.
The university followed with its own fan survey.
The Record published its All-Century team March 3, and the university recognized its team two days later at the regular-season finale.
"We've had fun looking back on a program that has brought a lot of entertainment to this area, rekindling fond memories of days at Stockton Memorial Civic Auditorium and some of the great players the program has produced over the years," said sports editor Bob Highfill.
See the online presentation here.
San Francisco Chronicle
The paper is finding the Giants fans' thirst for stories to be insatiable.
"Our beat writer, Henry Schulman, and columnists John Shea, Gwen Knapp, Scott Ostler and Bruce Jenkins dreamed up enough copy to make the Giants a regular presence throughout baseball's dead weeks — including a Countdown to Spring Training that started in mid-January," said deputy sports editor Mark Smoyer.
The countdown involved asking and answering a question a day about the reigning champions.
"Naturally, A's fans took notice and vented about their team's relative lack of presence," Smoyer said. "We also have staffed up at spring training by sending each of our columnists for a stint."
