Media coverage

David81 · January 29, 2022, 09:12:50 AM

As many of these posts about the newspaper biz indicate, the challenges facing local and regional print journalism are national in scope and encompass the NWI Times. Here in Boston, I've been following the work of Dan Kennedy, a media critic and journalism professor, who has been doing very important work on the future of local news coverage. For those interested in learning more, Dan joined up with another journalist to create this podcast, "What Works: The Future of Local News": https://whatworks.news/podcast/

Two trends appear to be emerging: (1) new and existing papers transitioning into a non-profit model (the Sun-Times is the most prominent, big-city example); and (2) niche news delivery, such as packaging various integrated combos of Patreon subscriptions, Substack newsletters, podcasts, and blogging platforms. I'm guessing that option #2 may be what Paul Oren has in mind.

humbleopinion · February 04, 2022, 02:54:15 PM

Paul Oren's long-awaited subscription service covering Beacon sports has arrived.

https://thevictorybell.substack.com/p/the-ball-is-tipped?showWelcome=true

David81 · February 04, 2022, 08:54:51 PM

Quote from: humbleopinion on February 04, 2022, 02:54:15 PM
Paul Oren's long-awaited subscription service covering Beacon sports has arrived.

https://thevictorybell.substack.com/p/the-ball-is-tipped?showWelcome=true

Thanks for sharing this!

Forgive me if this sounds preachy, but I'm a big believer in supporting journalists and journalism by compensating folks who provide the content. I hope that folks will consider a paid subscription.

valpotx · February 04, 2022, 09:28:02 PM

PO, how protected is the payment method?

David81 · February 05, 2022, 11:19:36 AM

I happily recommend Paul Oren's new site, The Victory Bell. His first three pieces are up, and among other things, it's clear that this niche format of sports journalism allows for longer, more thoughtful articles.

For those of you who subscribe to The Athletic, you'll recognize the promise of this site for in-depth coverage and commentary in these initial pieces.

wh · February 05, 2022, 02:12:35 PM

How did I miss this? Just got my annual subscription.

VUBBFan · February 05, 2022, 02:30:04 PM

https://twitter.com/NWIOren/status/1489699726203174916
All the news you need to know for VU Basketball

Pgmado · February 05, 2022, 02:59:34 PM

Well Mom, we did it.

Very excited to launch TheVictoryBell.substack.com

This has been in my mind for the last several months and it was one of the reasons I walked away from The Times. I went back and forth on a lot of different venues for this and I landed on Substack. ValpoTx asked me about how protected the payment method is. Substack uses credit card payments via Stripe, which has a great reputation. One of the reasons I landed on Substack is because I've talked to some great journalists who stepped away from print journalism and transitioned to Substack. They've loved the experience and have heard no complaints on the other end.

The Victory Bell is a subscription-based newsletter and the subscriptions come in two forms. The first is Free Subscriptions and with that, you'll get in-depth game coverage on the website and in your email inbox. So, I'll cover tonight's game against Indiana State and write a story as I normally would for a print newspaper and it will get posted and sent out. Basketball and football games will fall under this umbrella. The second is Paid Subscriptions. The charge is $5/month or $49.99/year. With this comes feature stories (such as the 2,000 word story on Trevor Anderson/Preston Ruedinger/Darius DeAveiro that came out yesterday), a weekly column touching on all the happenings surrounding Valparaiso University athletics, Exclusive Q&A's and historical pieces. The historical pieces will be prevalent in the offseason as game coverage winds down. (I'm eager to write the oral history of the 2001-02 Valpo team, mainly because it was my senior year). Football is going to become a bigger focus for me (as evidenced by the Robert Washington piece yesterday) and I'll also provide coverage for sports that the NWI Times/Post-Tribune often ignored.

I'm sure I'll continue to experiment with all this as the days and weeks pass. I'm incredibly excited for this new professional journey and I hope you'll follow along.

Chairback · February 05, 2022, 03:56:34 PM

Just the first two articles alone are well worth the subscription price. They were fantastic.

Looking forward to this and thanks PO. No more NWI Times restrictions on coverage. Can't wait for more!

The subscription price is a really good value for the quality PO produces.

humbleopinion · February 22, 2022, 06:32:11 AM

I have to give credit where it is due. Maybe it's because high school winter sports are winding down, but The Times sent out a link to the post-game press conference this morning.

https://www.nwitimes.com/sports/college/valparaiso-university/watch-now-valparaiso-players-coach-react-to-74-69-win-over-evansville/video_7cf4cf63-35fd-5863-bb68-4ae122e6de9e.html?utm_source=nwitimes.com&utm_campaign=%2Fnewsletter-templates%2Fnews-alert&utm_medium=PostUp&utm_content=aff3e3ab485e21d1b502abb394bb694f4c9e2b32

valpopal · February 28, 2022, 08:21:50 AM

There is an excellent and well-deserved front-page story in this morning's NWI Times about Dot Nuechterlein as the first female official scorer for a men's basketball team with some fond memories of the Homer Drew years included during her experiences since 1984.