I don’t know what’s going on with The Star’s Sports Department, but I’ve been seeing some troubling signs.
For years, the sports page has been voted one of the 10 best in the country, and until the sports section shrank, along with the rest of the paper, it probably deserved that placement.
But recently, in addition to the section’s significant reduction in size, incidents of lazy editing have cropped up.
As we all know, McClatchy, The Star’s owner, has staked its future on switching readers from print to digital, so it’s no surprise that less attention is being paid to the printed sports pages — just as emphasis on the news side has shifted from print to digital.
But, man, I’ve seen two things just within the last week that simply would not have been tolerated several years ago.
Example No. 1
The “centerpiece” story in today’s edition (centerpiece being a featured story accompanied by a large photo) was about Steve Spagnuolo, whom the Chiefs last week hired as defensive coordinator. Here’s the photo that ran with a column by Vahe Gregorian…
But just last Friday, the sports page ran the same photo — cropped a little tighter — along with Blair Kerkhoff’s story about Spagnuolo being hired. Here’s that photo…
Within four consecutive editions, the editors twice led the section with the same photo. That is just plain laziness and a disservice to readers. Dozens of Spagnuolo photos available at the touch of a mouse on Google. Here’s one of many photos The Star could have used, just to mix it up a bit…
Hey, it’s really cold outside today, and using one of him all bundled up would have been very appropriate!
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Example No. 2
Last Wednesday, the editors put this headline on a story about four former Major League Baseball players being voted into the Hall of Fame.
Because of the combination of his last name and the accompanying photo, I knew the “Rivera” in the headline referred to former Yankees’ closer Mariano Rivera.
But the abrupt switch from one player’s last name to two nicknames and one first name left me confused and clueless.
We have a former “Moose” of our own, of course, in Mike Moustakas. I knew he wasn’t the subject of the headline, however, because he’s still playing and thus not eligible for the “HOF.”
The editors should have realized Moustakas would have popped into many readers’ minds, and for that reason alone, the headline should have been dismissed out of hand. The “Moose” the headline referred to, then, is Mike Mussina, a former pitcher for the Baltimore Orioles and the Yankees.
The “Edgar” in the headline is Edgar Martinez, who played for the Seattle Mariners. And “Doc” is Roy Halladay, who pitched for the Philadelphia Phillies and Toronto Blue Jays. (He died in a 2017 plane crash.)
Now, it’s true that the first paragraph of the story clearly states who these players are, but headlines are not supposed to confuse; they are supposed to capture the gist of stories and draw the readers in. This headline drew readers in for the wrong reason: It was misleading and goofy.
Using the same number of characters, the editors could have had a straightforward, informative headline like, “Rivera, Halladay and two others voted to Hall of Fame.”
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In sum, there is no excuse for the redundancy in the Spagnuolo photos, and someone should have nixed the “Doc, Edgar, Moose” headline.
For these offenses, the buck stops with sports editor Jeff Rosen, who has held the job the last eight years. Jeff needs to pull his cap down a bit tighter and keep his eye on the ball.