Mike Moran is the new sports editor at the Daily Hampshire Gazette in Northampton, Mass.
Moran replaces Stan Moulton, who was promoted to online managing editor for GazetteNET.
Moran, 30, has been at the newspaper since July of 2002, right after graduating from Northeastern University. He spent his formative years in the business as an intern at The Patriot Ledger in Quincy, Mass., primarily covering high school sports.
Moran oversees a staff of two full-time sports writers and one part-timer. Moran and his wife, Stacy, live in Chicopee, Mass., and have a 9-month-old son, Jacob.
In between writing, doling out assignments and designing his section, Moran took time for a little Q&A.
What is your vision for your section?
“We’ve had a longstanding local viewpoint, and that’s not going to change. We’re going to continue to highlight local athletes and local teams. That’s what drives our readership.
“Part of the reason we made some moves was we’re looking to beef up the web site. We’re looking to do more multimedia as far as video highlights, video interviews, a lot of things more along that line.”
What’s the best story you’ve ever written?
Moran couldn’t pick just one. “I think I’ve had three stories that I’ve done that probably come to mind as my best,” he said.
One, he said, was a long magazine piece for Hampshire Life magazine on a local athlete who grew up in Springfield and ran into some trouble. The family of a teammate became the player’s guardians, and he was thrust into a completely different setting, going from an inner-city school to a regional school in the country. He was a star athlete in football and basketball, and Moran followed him for a whole season and told his story in an article that won first prize in a New England Associated Press News Executives Association contest.
His second was about a cross country runner who was phenomenal as a seventh- and eighth-grader, but then dropped out of sight. She was battling an eating disorder and sought treatment and got help, then came back.
“She was a wonderful kid and wonderful story. One of those different kind of sports topics,” Moran said.
The third piece he’s most proud of was on Kevin Ziomek, the pitcher drafted in the 13th round by the Diamondbacks in June’s draft. Ziomek, who is from Amherst, Mass., comes from a family with deep roots in baseball, from the local diamond being named for his grandfather, Stanley, who started the town’s Little League program, to a father and slew of uncles who also played ball. Moran’s deep feature wrapped up all of those angles right before the draft.
Who had the biggest influence in your career?
Moran said Rick Seto, the high schools coordinator at the Patriot Ledger, was a mentor for him as he learned the trade during a two-and-a-half-year internship.
“Rick had a lot to do with me getting here. He tipped me off about the job here, and in two and a half years, I couldn’t have asked for a better co-op experience. They really coached you as to the right way to go about writing a story, especially since they were an afternoon paper at the time, they taught me how to look beyond the simple, AP straight game story.”
Poughkeepsie Journal
Like most New York media on the day of George Steinbrenner’s death, Dan Pietrafesa and his crew at the Poughkeepsie Journal worked hard to present their readers with a compelling, informative package on the biggest story of the day.
The PoJo sports team’s effort was major-league.
Reporter Phil Strum used Ulster County resident and esteemed baseball writer Roger Kahn as the primary source to discuss Steinbrenner's legacy for one story.
Strum then wrote another story using local Yankee connections. He interviewed Joe Ausanio, who played for the Yankees in parts of 1994 and 1995, and Yankees employee David Bernstein, who was working at Yankee Stadium at his job as director of hospitality for the Yankees when Strum contacted him. Both men live in the PoJo’s coverage area.
Mike Benischek interviewed Donald Trump, who owns a golf club near Poughkeepsie, and Sean McMann interviewed local fans, including a former classmate of Steinbrenner. Pietrafesa wrote a column on meeting Steinbrenner as a teenager 25 years ago when he was working at a gas station and received a real personalized autograph from him.
Pietrafesa said the staff’s one regret was not being able to reach local resident Matt Michael, sone of former Yankees general manager Gene Michael. Matt Michael grew up in the Yankee organization and played in the organization with guys like Mariano Rivera.
Online, the sports staff presented historic Poughkeepsie Journal pages featuring Steinbrenner, and a video from Modells.
On the night of the special ceremony at Yankee Stadium, Pietrafesa and Pete Colaizzo, a contributor to the Journal’s sports pages, attended as fans and called in a scene setter story for the paper’s front page. Pietrafesa and his wife took photos for a photo gallery.
“I thought we did a great job covering the death of George Steinbrenner — five pages, three in A and two in sports. This does not compete with the NY papers, but I thought as a staff we did a great job and the presentation came out well in print and on the web,” Pietrafesa said.
Click here for pdf of the section front
— By Matt Pepin, sports editor, Boston.com
SOUTHEAST
Gearing up for football preview sections
Northwest Arkansas Newspapers
When The Morning News of Northwest Arkansas merged with the Northwest Edition of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in November 2009, the new Northwest Arkansas Newspapers LLC revamped its news and sports coverage to better meet the needs of the readers in the four large cities that comprise the Northwest Arkansas region.
The Northwest Arkansas Times, which covers Fayetteville, and the Benton County Daily Record, which covers Bentonville, were already in place. The Morning News was split into two small dailies — the Springdale Morning News and the Rogers Morning News, giving the region four separate newspapers.
Using the new format, this year’s football section will be split into four separate publications, each centering on the teams that are tied to that particular newspaper. There are 22 teams in the combined coverage area of the four dailies and all will get their own previews. In addition, NAN will partner with the Northwest Edition of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette to provide coverage for the ADG’s football section that will hit 12 counties.
Besides the normal team and conference previews, a large enterprise piece will focus on the number of Division I linemen in the area this year. Five area linemen have verbally committed to Division I programs, following in the footsteps of former Rogers High lineman Lee Ziemba, who is projected as a first-round NFL selection next spring. Plus, how often to linemen get their day in the sun? So this is a chance to give the big guys their due.
One thing that has made the football sections unique and earned APSE honors is the work of cartoonist Vic Harville on custom covers each year. Harville will produce cartoon covers for the four separate sections. In addition, he has created a custom cartoon that will be used on T-shirts presented each week to the players of the week. For the small cost of getting T-shirts printed, the publicity of the T-shirts will promote the newspapers in the community.
The Tuscaloosa News
The News produces two sections — high school and college — both magazine-sized with (almost) all color inside pages and slick covers.
The high school cover will be "Rivals" and the cover story will key in on the top rivalries in our area. Each of the 42 football-playing high schools in the coverage area will have a preview story. With each will be an info box on returning starters, schedule, etc., and to keep with the theme there will be a small breakout box for each preview with top rivalry, date of the game and a quote from a coach or player about why the game is important.
The college tab is, of course, Alabama-dominated. The theme will be "Dynasty," and will explore whether UA is on the verge of building one, and whether Alabama can repeat its national title.
During the fall, The Tuscaloosa News is producing — from the first high school Friday through the second round of the playoffs — a 16-page color tab for Saturday’s editions with all our prep game coverage, yardsticks, scores, next week's schedule, etc.
Florence Times Daily
The high school tab theme centers around Back to Basics, and the idea is to get coaches and players talking football philosophy and school traditions interwoven with some routine preview information. Info boxes will appear with each preview of the 29 football-playing schools in the coverage area. There will be an online video presence on the primary schools, and the entire section will be online.
— Jon Johnson, sports editor, Dothan (Ala.) Eagle
WESTERN
Salt Lake Tribune
The news organization in June launched a redesigned website (still www.sltrib.com) that left the MediaNews Group-hosted platform based in Denver. The new site has many enhancements but foremost allows for better integration of blog posts and other social media with other news on pages. … The Tribune published a four-page wraparound section that looked at and explained NBA free agency in depth. Included was this doubletruck graphic that explained the complex and often Byzantine rules associated with free agency. … The Tribune also took an in-depth look at Utah's open enrollment statutes — passed 17 years ago — and how they have had unintended consequences on the state's high school football fields. (See story by clicking this link). With students allowed to enroll in their school of choice at the outset, or transfer for "hardship" reasons once enrolled, persistent player movement has become the norm among the state's bigger schools. It has skewed the balance of power — after decades of parity, now only a handful of powerhouse programs are legitimate state championship contenders. The package, fueled by database reporting, included a school-by-school breakdown and map online of where the players for each of Utah's football teams live. (See the database and graphic presentation here).
San Francisco Chronicle/SFGate
The Chronicle is now embargoing its columnists from the Gate. The columnists' newspaper articles appear on the Gate two days late. This has been going on for a little while but there have not been any cause-and-effect reports yet regarding circulation, the paid-for "e-edition," and Gate traffic. … The biggest news around these parts lately was columnist Ray Ratto's move from print to television. Ratto gave over most of his last 30 years and all of his sanity to Bay Area newspapers … mostly the Examiner and Chronicle. He was a columnist for 20 years. Those inside the office will dearly miss his ability to turn a column on any subject within about 20 minutes of the request. He is now the "senior insider" at Comcast SportsNet Bay Area (and on the Web site, csnbayarea.com). To commemorate his newspaper career, a proper roast took place in the back room of a San Francisco tavern. Ratto's longtime editor, Glenn Schwarz, organized the event, and the room was crowded with well-known bylines from the local papers' present and past.
The Antelope Valley Press
AV Press columnist Brian Golden was honored July 7 as one of the 15 Hangar Heroes bobbleheads in celebration of the 15th year of the JetHawks minor league baseball team in Lancaster, Calif. Golden, who has covered sports in the Valley for more than 25 years, was instrumental in bringing minor league baseball to the region with his columns in the early 1990s that called for the Lancaster City Council to act on a stadium.
Nearly 100 professional baseball players have passed through The Hangar on their way to the major leagues, including fellow bobbleheads Dan Uggla and Justin Masterson.
The AV Press this year also marked the JetHawks' anniversary by producing two full-page packages on back-to-back weeks with the all-time JetHawks teams. The teams were chosen by sports editor Toby Carrig, associate sports editor and JetHawks beat writer Jason Gonzalez and sports writer Greg Wagner with some assistance from the JetHawks' media relations director. Gonzalez produced the pages. The July 4 edition included a version of this full-color presentation (not all type translated to the pdf) with a team based on MLB performances. The July 11 edition included a full page (black and white) with a team based on players' performances during their time with the JetHawks in the California League.
— Lauren Gustus, sports editor, Reno Gazette-Journal
GREAT PLAINS
St. Louis Post-Dispatch worked with the Mid-American Press Institute to provide a sports journalism workshop on June 28-29 in St. Louis.
— Reid Laymance, AME/Sports, St Louis Post-Dispatch
