Compliments, announcements & promotions, oh my!

This first appeared in The Record.

We recently received a compliment from another local media outlet. We’ll graciously accept it and use the opportunity to make a few related announcements.

First the recognition: The staff of Metroland, in its Best of the Region edition on July 16, cited The Record as having the best local sports coverage among local media. This is the second time in three years the sports department has been cited;

“The Record gives a lot of real estate - in newspapers, ‘real estate’ means pages - to sports,” Metroland reported. “And a big share of this is in-depth coverage of local sports: high school, college, minor league baseball and hockey, you name it. Being able to devote your back page to a dynamic sports photo every day doesn’t hurt, either.”

Not too shabby. Thanks Metroland! We’re very proud of the team here too, which includes six full-timers - sports editor Kevin Moran and assistant sports editor Tim Martin, and staff writers Chris Fitz Gerald, Will Montgomery, Andrew Santillo, and Ed Weaver – as well as some stringers. And I would be remiss if we didn’t add the names of Jim Carras, Tom Killips and Mike McMahon – our very experienced (more than 85 years at the paper between the three of them) and very talented photo staff whose work on the back cover was referenced by the alternative paper.

One of the very cool – and very unusual in our business – aspects of our staff is their local ties. Five of the aforementioned writers grew up in the area: Fitz Gerald in Scotia, Montgomery in Burnt Hills, Martin in Hudsonx, Moran in Waterline, and Santillo in Niskayuna. Weaver is a native of the Elmira area.

Moran says that the local connections ensure the staff is very sensitive and responsive to covering the local sports scene as broadly and deeply as possible. “My philosophy is to cover every event no matter how small. We can’t get to every 8- or 9-year old Little League game. But we know our readers are only going to get the kind of local coverage in The Record that we do so we try to cover every local team and athlete we can.”

And now, a segue to a few developments at The Record we feel will serve readers well:

• The first is we would like to announce that McMahon, who has been with us 33 years, has been promoted to the executive chief photographer. Previously he served as chief photographer at The Record. He now oversees the photo staff of both our paper and our sister paper, The Saratogian. Mike will continue to shoot and be present in our newsroom just about as much as he has in the past, but will now work with both staffs on scheduling, overseeing quality control and training. He will help us continue to evolve in our ability to delivery local news and sports videos on our Web sites as well.
• They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. The paper is in development of a Reader’s Choice Awards which will be unveiled this fall. It is kinda, sorta similar to Metroland’s “Best of” effort, but frankly this is not the purview of any one publication - it is a staple of hundreds of newspapers across the country. It seemed to us that more of the businesses and institutions in our readership area deserved recognition than afforded by similar efforts of other publications that cast a much wider net. Look for ballots in The Record and our weekly publications soon.
• Last, but certainly not least … Look for The Record’s 2009 High School Football Preview section the first week in September. Kevin and his staff will be publishing previews and schedules for each of 21 schools in our readership area. This is something we haven’t done in a few years but, as the paper with the title of “best sports coverage”, it is only apropos it return.

If that is not enough, we’ll be unveiling more sports- and non-sports related projects as we head into fall. Stay tuned.