The word “mercenary” has a few definitions.
The noun version is “a professional soldier hired to serve in a foreign
army.” The adjective edition is “(of a person or their behavior) primarily
concerned with making money at the expense of ethics.”
Last weekend, you could say I served the role of mercenary because I’m
not going to feel guilty making extra side money. Except I did not
sacrifice ethics to do so. There were a few people who used the word
“whore” in association to what I did but I’m OK with that because it was
meant in jest.
To set the scene, I was a sports reporter in the newspaper industry for 18
years before changing careers at the end of the 2014 calendar year.
However, I have stayed involved in journalism on some level between
this blog and helping my former employer, Napa Valley Publishing,
with high school football coverage.
On Friday night, the No. 4 seeded Justin-Siena (Napa, CA) Braves were
hosting the No. 5 seeded Lower Lake (Lower Lake, CA) Trojans at Dodd
Stadium. NVP reached out to me to cover a game and I told them because
of my work schedule/other logistics that covering the Justin/Lower Lake
game made sense. Why? I live across the highway from Justin-Siena and
it allowed me to reach out to the Lake County Record Bee, which covers
news and sports throughout Lake County, CA. Why not kill two birds
with one stone? I have done this duty on a few other occasions.
In addition, I have a friendship with Record Bee sports editor Brian
Sumpter, who has been at that newspaper for 35 years. I got to know
Sumpter well during my years of covering the Upvalley beat, mainly St.
Helena and Calistoga, because those schools play the Lake County schools.
I covered St. Helena and Calistoga for NVP’s sister weekly publications,
the St. Helena Star and Weekly Calistogan, from 2004-2014 as a sports
reporter.
In a nutshell, I would be covering Friday’s game for both the Napa Valley
Register and Lake County Record Bee. The repeated question I got when
I told people was, “Damn, how are you going to do that?” Fortunately,
newspaper print deadlines in these parts have moved to 7 p.m. That
scenario means Friday night football games don’t reach the print edition
until Sunday. Therefore, there is no hard deadline but you get the story
done as soon as you can so the news organization gets the story on the
internet sooner rather than later.
The other question I would get was, “Are you going to send the same
story or different ones?” I planned on choosing the latter route because:
a) As a freelance writer, you don’t get paid much (I won’t go into specifics),
b) Having covered sports on the community level, I know how personally
they take their coverage. So the approach I took was to compile
comprehensive statistics (both offense and defense) for both teams.
My approach to covering a high school football game is: 1) I set up my
defensive chart to keep track of sacks, fumble recoveries, interceptions,
tackles for lost yardages and impact tackles (gains resulting in yardage
of 0-3), 2) On the first play of the game, I write down jersey numbers of
the starting offensive line, 3) Of course, I take all of the passing, rushing
and receiving stats and 4) I talk to the head coach and on occasion a player
or two.
The purpose of points No. 1 and 2 are because skill position players
(quarterback, running back, receiver) naturally enter the equation because
they drive the racecar. The offensive line and defensive players are the pit
crew that keeps the car running smoothly so the driver can bring the
machine across the finish-line. One does not function without the other.
They are a package deal.
In a sense, my assignment was no different than if I was covering two
Napa County schools, any combination of Napa, Vintage, Justin and
American Canyon with one exception. Games between local schools in
the same readship group, you take an all-encompassing approach in
your coverage.
In my years on the Upvalley beat, I covered many events between St.
Helena and Calistoga High but I’ll give two examples. In 2008 and
2009, I covered a football game between the St. Helena Saints and
Calistoga Wildcats for three newspapers. St. Helena won both matchups
37-0 and 45-6 respectively. On the daily publication front, it was the
Napa Valley Register. On the weekly newspaper front, it was the St.
Helena Star and Weekly Calistogan.
For the Register, I included comprehensive details on both teams and
with the lead, I took an umbrella approach but for obvious reasons, the
story was St. Helena dominated. I took the same approach for any Napa
versus Vintage game I covered at earlier points in my career for the
Register.
For the Star and Calistogan, I took a pure local approach. For the former,
I wrote about how great St. Helena looked, making the story the main
package. For the latter, I kindly wrote about how Calistoga was utterly
dominated but took a “the less I write the better” approach and I buried
the story so as not to attract too much attention. After all, we are talking
about high school sports, where you accentuate the positive but report
negativity with sensitivity because they are kids, most will not play
competitive sports after high school.
Back to my Friday night assignment, Justin dominated Lower Lake
55-14 but I picked two different ways to describe it.
The Napa Valley Register edition. The narrative was how the victorious
Braves dominated an overmatched opponent:
The Lake County Record Bee edition. The narrative was how one bad
game does not detract from a successful season for the Trojans:
The term “pandering” often has a negative connotation but in this
particular case, such an approach is warranted. If you read both stories,
there is a significant element of pandering with high school athletics at
the community newspaper level, you have to understand that coverage
to these readership groups are personal. Translation, you can’t cover the
Justin-Siena Braves like the Atlanta Braves and you can’t cover the
Lower Lake Trojans like you cover the USC Trojans.
Even in the role of mercenary, the principled approach still has its place.
