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So what do you think of it so far?

By Martin Warrillow on Oct 20, 08 09:20 PM in

One of the consequences of The Post's relaunch this week has been a drastic cutback in the amount of space given to sport within the newspaper.
The decision to focus far more on business news and switch from a broadsheet to tabloid format meant that something had to give - and sport was a prime candidate.

I have argued in the past that filling anything up to 12 broadsheet pages with a reporting staff of four was stretching ourselves much too thinly; we were resorting too often to covering national events, just to fill the newspaper.
That might have been useful when I joined the Post in 1992 and sources of information were much more limited than today, but is it right for the internet era?
I believe we have to focus far more exclusively on West Midlands events; giving our readers a take on those events that they can't get from elsewhere. Hence, you'll still see our core extensive coverage of West Midlands football, but you'll also see a big emphasis on rugby and cricket, sports which we know Post readers support and play in big numbers.
We also hope to expand our coverage of so-called 'minority sports' within the region, something we haven't been able to do in the past. The mantra now is: "Is it local?"
Readers of the first edition since the relaunch will have noticed the difference; Lewis Hamilton and Andy Murray were the only non-West Midlands sportsmen to get a mention and there were even arguments in the office over that.
This lack of space has, of course, meant some things which were once sacred have had to go. There is no longer room in the Monday edition of the paper for almost a full broadsheet page of local football results and tables; along with the local rugby results and tables, they can now be found on our website at www.birminghampost.net/sport.
In that way, we hope we can continue to provide an unrivalled service in the print version while encouraging more readers to try the Post on the internet, something which has been a spectacular success this year.
But are we doing it right? One of the complaints we picked up on day one was from a lady wondering where the racing returns had gone. (Again, they are a victim of the space constraints)
So what do you think? I'll be fascinated to hear your opinions on perhaps the most radical thing to happen to the Post's sports coverage in the past 25 years.

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4 Comments

B C Lambah said:

So if there was so much argument over Andy Murray and Lewis Hamilton why were they pictured on the back page but not featured until the final sports page?
Surely in the spirit of 'Is it local' a better back page picture would be...something local?

Martin Warrillow said:

That's a fair point. We wouldn't have used any of the other West Midlands football for what we call 'the back-page boost', what with Albion being hammered at Old Trafford and Blues only drawing with Burnley.
The only other local option would have been Birmingham & Solihull's win, from which we did have some nice action pictures. However,we felt we did want to acknowledge two national events which were, to use an awful phrase, 'water-cooler moments.'
And Andy Murray is universally liked now - isn't he?

Raymond Pearce said:

Your coverage of local cricket over the years has been brilliant and I hpoe that will continue next June. Also I would like to see the previous day's weather stastics printed. The TV supplement which used to appear in the late lamented Saturday edition is very much missed by me, could the weeks TV programmes appear in one edition or supplement?So far 7/10 Best wishes. Ray Castle Bromwich. A reader since 1960s.qj

Martin Warrillow said:

Thank you for your words in praise of our cricket coverage. We are confident that we can keep up our high standards next season when, of course, Warwickshire and Worcestershire will both be getting more coverage from our national rivals after their promotions in the County Championship.

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