The Chronicle will just see that as a wane in interest in soccer. We'll get more stories about the Corpus Christi Hooks and more Dynamo bashing from Ortiz.
well, if you stop clicking on ANYTHING on their website, the decline will show as across the board tied directly to him. At any rate, I stopped supporting him awhile ago, they can write whatever they want.
I read that article by Dart and wondered who was. and now it turns out he will working FOR the Dynamo. http://www.houstondynamo.com/news/2013/03/dynamo-trying-regroup-after-consecutive-losses
So this is why he must be upset: the Dynamo got tired of his shenanigans and hired a real pro from across the pond to cover the team. Btw, a very simple article but I liked it. Straight to the point. Can't wait to see what this guy can do.
This has happened a lot in the NHL: teams hire their own quasi-independent beat writers since their local news sources do such a poor job with coverage (especially when the economy tanked in '08, because a lot of newspapers cut travel budgets).
I am really kind of disappointed because I really want an independent, unbieased journalist to give me good writing and coverage as oppopsed to Ortiz. Darell Lovel and whoever else are decent writers but it really just has the appearance of Dynamo PR many times. This isn't surprising since they get paid by teh Dynamo Dart's piece was good and he has a resume but now any of his future pieces will be filtered by an Orange master. The Chron still needs a good, creative, unbiased writer who loves soccer who will be the public's independent lense.
The question is who has editorial control? If it the Dynamo FO then we'll get better analytical articles but no criticism or breaking news - other than what they want leaked. MLSsoccer does a pretty good job considering it is a league website. But we'll never see an article like the Brian Straus US team one yesterday
The Chron barely even has half-decent writers for anything else including football. You really think they're going to hire a decent SOCCER writer? HA!!!!
Seriously did the Dynamo do something to piss off the Chronicle? There was one tiny story online about last night's loss with no interviews, no background, no mention that Boniek had gotten himself hurt at training, nothing. Remember "Dynamo notes?" Such a fond memory. And in the list of sports headlines in the Chronicle http://www.chron.com/sports/headlines/ , of the 100 headlines, guess how many are about the Dynamo. If you guessed one, you guessed too high. That's how many stories about girl's high school wrestling there were. It's really sad, a few years ago we were sort of proud of the soccer coverage in the Chron, but were hoping it would improve. I never thought it would sink to blatantly ignoring the sport and the team, arguably the city's most successful franchise.
The Dynamo are going to need to figure it out without the Chronicle. I'm not even sure how many people read the Chron, but maybe they think that Dynamo/soccer types cannot read. I will not click on their link anymore, nor do I need their paper.
They did have some Saturday paper preview article of the game written by Ortiz. Late Saturday events never get heavy coverage unless it is college football. But it seems like they shifted real hard into Astros coverage. I consider myself a newspaper hardcore and I probably read it 3 of 7 days of the week, and look at the website a few times a day. There just isn't much in there worth reading.
I've witnessed the trajectory of the Chron with association football. Richard Dean articles once a week on our USL Hurricanes, MLS scores, Europe in the late 90's to the early oughts with Glenn's two articles a week, then our glorious Dynamo years coverage by Glenn and Fallas to now Ortiz and the mule dung it has become.
Late Saturday games never show up in my edition but there's no excuse why there can't be good coverage online. I used to get the Chronicle in the afternoon and the Post in the morning, then when the Chron switched to the morning I got both in the morning. And read them religiously. And I continued reading the Chronicle every single day, every page, until fairly recently. Even though by the time I could read it it was all old news. When the ipad app came out I read it every morning instead of the paper. I don't think I have opened a paper since I downloaded the app. I still subscribe but have been planning to switch to just the electronic subscription. But since Ortiz left for Florida I have really been thinking about dumping the whole thing. I'm really fed up with them.
My observations from Sunday is that I saw Jerome Solomon and one or two other authors in the sports section - mostly covering baseball, basketball and texans. A great many stories were actually authored by the AP pulled off the wire. Why is Ortiz in Florida? Did he take another job? Nothing from him yesterday, not even baseball.
Ortiz did the baseball notes today. He was at spring training and was at Azteca. I don't know if he is on the Astros beat officially or not but he seems pretty light on Dynamo stuff.
I really believe this is the end of days for the Chronicle and the Dynamo. They gave the Aeros a similar shaft a few years ago (they aren't listed individually on the "Sports" dropdown menu on the site, but they aren't in the "Other Sports" section either), although there is a guy semi-dedicated to covering the team, he's kind of a clown. What little hockey coverage remains is pulled from wire services (in fairness, they are a minor league team and they're likely moving soon, but this has been going on for a few years). Sure, during a Cup run they get some increased coverage, but I doubt a title would even get front page treatment these days. The Dart hiring feels like a true nail in the coffin. Not sure if Ortiz really turned on the FO because he knew Dart was coming, or they poached Dart because they were tired of Ortiz. Either way, between the Dynamo's in-house guys and the MLSSoccer.com staff, it would take a far better reporter to compete. FWIW, my family subscribes to the Chronicle (if only because my elderly grandmother insists on getting it and the family doesn't have the heart to cut her off). I read it daily, but there are few redeeming qualities. Pales in comparison to the time I've spent in markets with access to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette or even the KC Star.
I think everyone realizes that coverage is a business to some degree and that dictates coverage direction with limited resources. I think the Chron looks at soccer in total and not just the Dynamo. And coverage of Rice and UH is a fraction of what it was 20 years ago or even 10 years ago. The reality is that most of the best writers work for websites now. Sports Business Journal had a long article (free) on teams doing more in-house (mostly the Washington Capitals) and they had a Dynamo sidebar but that was behind a paywall. I'm sure the Dart hiring is part of that. Only issue is will Dart ever write a critical article when warranted? Glenn Davis sort of criticizes in a polite way but most team sites won't write much negative stuff.
Well, Ortiz's reduced content does seem to coincide with my letter to the editor complaining about his work. I will say that he had one piece he put in after either the Vancouver or San Jose game that was decent. The content seemed to be edited better and lacked the airing of personal greviences as we have seen in the recent past. Reading articles like that suggests to me that Jesus has the talent to possibly deliver adequate, objective reporting / writing about the Dynamo. It's just that he either doesn't want to or doesn't have the adequate time to write thoughfully / insightfully. Until the Chron gets another writer that is a true fan of soccer (besides Ortiz) I think the Chron coverage will be light.
As has been pointed out previously. resources are allocated based on hits or lack thereof. If I recall correctly, there was considerable discussion and urging in this forum to boycott the Chron Dynamo page and deny them the ability to gauge interest in the reporting on the Dynamo. Apparently the campaign has worked. Congratulations.
When you don't actually write or publish a soccer article or blog it's hard to command many hits. Ortiz hasn't posted a soccer blog in 9 days. I'm fairly certain since the US-Mexico game there has been only 2 or 3 Dynamo articles, some for the San Jose game and then a preview article Sat AM. So maybe 3 articles in two weeks.
True - but the "Don't Go There" campaign predated the US-Mexico game by a month or so. We might just be seeing the results of the campaign. Maybe the sports editor took notice of the lack of interest and decided that Jesus was better utilized elsewhere rather than waste column inches (or whatever you call it) on articles that no-one was clicking on.
If the Chronicle editors want to direct coverage from the Dynamo to the worst baseball team since the 1962 Mets, I have nothing I could say that would change that thought. And I must be far underestimating the power of Team Westside and BigSoccer