After a long wait, the Durham Herald-Sun finally went on line, and in many
ways has done a fine job, despite being so far behind the rest of the newspaper
world. Our feeling was they had finally seen the light and were on track.
Well, sort of. Sources tell us that the Herald-Sun, apparently alone
among major NC papers, isn't going to send anyone to cover the Duke-Stanford
game, nor the UNC-UCLA game. This is a bizarre decision in our book.Â
UNC-UCLA is a game between two legendary powers, and after last season's
debacle, should be very intense. Nonetheless, neither team is at its best
currently, least of all UCLA, so maybe that's understandable. But when
your hometown team is #1 in the nation and playing the #3 team, you'd think the
hometown paper would pay attention. At least a bit.
Frankly, there's absolutely no point in having a web site and just posting AP
stories, because why would you read one story in the Durham paper when you could
read the same thing on the New York Times, or better yet ESPN? There is no
advantage to publishing the same story everyone else does. If that's all
it is, people will gravitate to sites with perks (like ESPN).
The Durham paper is at the epicenter of college basketball and has a unique
opportunity. Unfortunately, if our sources are correct, and we believe
they are, they are still being penny wise and pound foolish. They'll save
a bit of money, but one reporter could easily cover both games, file a ton of
stories, and garner a lot of readers. As it is, we'll stick with the other
NC papers and the San Francisco sources, since the hometown guys still have
this, uh, vision problem. It's hard to believe the shortsightedness, but then
again, it's hard to believe it took them so long to understand they had to get
on line in the first place.