Little League coverage might be start of major thing
If all goes well, we'll be offering our online readers highlights of the Naperville Little League championship games this weekend.
Coverage comes courtesy of NCTV 17, Naperville's community access station. Channel 17 will be there, and plans to air the Major League championship game in its entirety on Sunday. The station also will be creating a 90-second or so highlights video, which we plan to air on our Web site, probably Wednesday.
A story on the games, for you old-fashioned types (I like to call you "subscribers" and I love you dearly) is planned for our Wednesday Neighbor editions.
This little Little League experiment is a first step we're taking with NCTV, but it may lead to a broader relationship that could benefit both of us. We can do a better job of covering community events with NCTV's help, and we can help the station get out the word a bit about who they are and what they're doing. (One of my editors pointed out that several other towns in DuPage County do a nice job with community access programming, so who knows what the future holds?)
There likely was a time, perhaps not all that many years ago, when we might not have considered such a relationship with another media outlet. And, I daresay that the day is not around the corner in which we'll be contacting, say, the Chicago Tribune about some type of info-sharing relationship. Despite everyone's venture into the world of the Web, there's still a ton of intramural competitiveness among the print media. But it's interesting that, in its quest, I guess, to be comprehensive, the Trib's prep sports Web site routinely links to stories produced by ... you guessed it, the Daily Herald.
I remember well, even though it was probably close to 15 years ago, when our company president brought the news director of WBBM Newsradio 78 into my office to announce that we had formed an informal partnership. We'd provide a desk in our newsroom for the WBBM suburban bureau chief, then Craig Dellimore. Craig would report many of his stories from here with the tagline, "- from the newsroom of the Daily Herald." Well, that's nice of us, I thought, but what real good is that going to do? Perhaps that's why I'm still the DuPage editor and not the company president.
Actually, it didn't take long at all to see the benefits. WBBM is clearly the Chicago area's radio authority on news. Getting our name mentioned regularly on the airwaves clearly showed us to be a serious player. It's a fine tradition carried on to this day by Craig's successor, Julie Mann. Technological advances find Julie reporting a bit more from the field, but if you listen to the morning newscasts, you'll see she often picks up stories we've broken, and credits us. We also tip each other to breaking news stories, which really benefits both our readers and 'BBM's listeners. It's hard to measure the value of getting our names on the airwaves, but I consider it priceless - another way to reach potential readers.
We don't have an exclusive relationship with WBBM. You may have heard 'BBM's Noon Business Report with the Tribune (there they go again), but, hey, that's the nature of the beast. Our sportswriters appear with some regularity on other radio stations, including Tribune Corp.-owned WGN 720.
And, by the way, don't forget the Sunday morning TV interviews of a Daily Herald reporter on ABC 7 Chicago. We're being pre-empted by the British Open this weekend, but check us out next week.
In the meantime, though, there's the Naperville Little League highlights to tide you over at dailyherald.com.
jdavis@dailyherald.com