Tuesday's Marathon Coverage in The Chronicle
Yawn.
I'm sure 50-year-old Stephanie Rankin (from North Carolina) and her 25-year-old son, Conor (from Boston), will have a wonderful time coming to the Space City, celebrating their birthdays and enjoying successes in the Aramco Half Marathon and hp Houston Marathon, respectively. However, this is a story that shouldn't have EVEN graced the sports pages. Maybe the main or business sections (to speak to the economic clout of the event), but not the sports section. I give this a grade of D.
Why? Lack of common sense. If you are going to do an article on somebody coming in from out of town "to come down to Houston for a Sunday run," find somebody that made us a first choice!
The article pointed out that they were only coming here because they waited too long to register for the Disney World Half Marathon, which was held this past weekend in Orlando.
There are two problems here.
First, Neil Hohlfeld doesn't need to be writing these articles in between covering the Rockets, the Aeros or whatever college event they send him to. Again, we need the section's resident runner -- and HARRA member -- writing them: Roberta MacInnis. That's why they give her a running notebook during the year!
Secondly, isn't there somebody from the Marathon providing some direction on potential subjects to write about? [The Marine Corps Marathon, on their web site, seeks out motivating stories. Presumably to share with the local media which often has somebody who isn't a runner writing copy.] If so, they would have identified an out-of-town individual, much like Stephanie Turner the day before, that put Houston on their running map first and had a worthwhile story to tell in the process.
I just think that there are so many great runners in the greater Houston and Gulf Coast area that could be profiled. What about the local runners who may have an outside shot of pushing whatever elites decide to show up? What about the race for the HARRA team and club championships in the Fall series? What about a graphic on how the local invited runners qualified?
Instead we get an article that may have taken Hohlfeld all of an hour to write.
I'm sure 50-year-old Stephanie Rankin (from North Carolina) and her 25-year-old son, Conor (from Boston), will have a wonderful time coming to the Space City, celebrating their birthdays and enjoying successes in the Aramco Half Marathon and hp Houston Marathon, respectively. However, this is a story that shouldn't have EVEN graced the sports pages. Maybe the main or business sections (to speak to the economic clout of the event), but not the sports section. I give this a grade of D.
Why? Lack of common sense. If you are going to do an article on somebody coming in from out of town "to come down to Houston for a Sunday run," find somebody that made us a first choice!
The article pointed out that they were only coming here because they waited too long to register for the Disney World Half Marathon, which was held this past weekend in Orlando.
There are two problems here.
First, Neil Hohlfeld doesn't need to be writing these articles in between covering the Rockets, the Aeros or whatever college event they send him to. Again, we need the section's resident runner -- and HARRA member -- writing them: Roberta MacInnis. That's why they give her a running notebook during the year!
Secondly, isn't there somebody from the Marathon providing some direction on potential subjects to write about? [The Marine Corps Marathon, on their web site, seeks out motivating stories. Presumably to share with the local media which often has somebody who isn't a runner writing copy.] If so, they would have identified an out-of-town individual, much like Stephanie Turner the day before, that put Houston on their running map first and had a worthwhile story to tell in the process.
I just think that there are so many great runners in the greater Houston and Gulf Coast area that could be profiled. What about the local runners who may have an outside shot of pushing whatever elites decide to show up? What about the race for the HARRA team and club championships in the Fall series? What about a graphic on how the local invited runners qualified?
Instead we get an article that may have taken Hohlfeld all of an hour to write.
posted by WalkSports.com | 7:03 PM
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