Oklahoman - OU basketball coverage

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SKSooner

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How much has the quality of coverage of OU slipped in the last few years? Do you all remember George Schroeder? He was a professional. Loved his coverage of OU sports. However, it is clear that the Oklahoman & Sports Animal have moved to covering the Thunder 99.99% of the time. As a result, their coverage of OU & OSU sports - both football and men's basketball - has really been poor. Check out the Oklahoman's preview of next year. I think a sixth grader could provide as good of analysis:

http://newsok.com/looking-ahead-to-the-sooners-2013-14-season/article/3770988
 
SKSooner said:
How much has the quality of coverage of OU slipped in the last few years? Do you all remember George Schroeder? He was a professional. Loved his coverage of OU sports. However, it is clear that the Oklahoman & Sports Animal have moved to covering the Thunder 99.99% of the time. As a result, their coverage of OU & OSU sports - both football and men's basketball - has really been poor. Check out the Oklahoman's preview of next year. I think a sixth grader could provide as good of analysis:

http://newsok.com/looking-ahead-to-the-sooners-2013-14-season/article/3770988
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Schroeder is with USA Today and for good reason. He's an excellent writer. Of course, he covered when OU basketball was a very good program (early 2000s) and it's slipped as you know. I expect the Oklahoman to step-up their coverage of basketball as the program improves.
 
We have gone through beat writes like the plague. Nobody at the Oklahoman wants to cover OU because Stoops is a prick to the media and allows no access. Thus we get writers who just graduated. Travis Haney was good and his last article was about Bob and his disrespect for the media. Notice they have Helsley still covering the aggies.
 
vbdad said:
We have gone through beat writes like the plague. Nobody at the Oklahoman wants to cover OU because Stoops is a prick to the media and allows no access. Thus we get writers who just graduated. Travis Haney was good and his last article was about Bob and his disrespect for the media. Notice they have Helsley still covering the aggies.
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Actually the problem is that ESPN swooped in and hired both Jake Trotter and Haney away from the Oklahoman. Apparently the Oklahoman was tired of this, so they went and hired someone straight out of J-school (Kuzydym) that they knew would be around for awhile. Thus far, her output has been about as rough as you would expect it to be. Hopefully she will get better with time, but it will take patience.

The comments about Trotter & Haney leaving because of Bob are unfounded. Hell Trotter left the Oklahoman to, yes, cover OU for ESPN. So I fail to see how he was running away from Bob.
 
You guys are being too hard on Stephanie Kuzydym. Her writing skills improved as the season progressed. And even if they didn't, she has given OU men's basketball more positive press than any beat writer we've had in years.

In part, that's because there weren't many negatives to report. But Stephanie clearly went out of her way to develop feature stories on every key player on our roster, some she wrote about more than once. That's a far cry from some of the beat writers we've had in the past who did just the opposite. Their philosophy was that negative press sells newspapers, so they set out to dig up as much dirt as they could, which wasn't all that difficult two years ago.

Tramel clearly didn't do his homework in the article he wrote, "College hoops has a pulse." He still has Dominique Elliott as one of our recruits coming in next year. But on the whole, I really didn't see much wrong with the rest of what he had to say.

I may be making a mistake by bragging on Stephanie Kuzydym too much. Now that we finally have a good one, at least in my opinion, the Oklahoman will banish her to parts unknown and we'll be back where we were when every other newspaper you picked up had nothing but bad things to say about OU basketball.
 
AdaSooner said:
You guys are being too hard on Stephanie Kuzydym. Her writing skills improved as the season progressed. And even if they didn't, she has given OU men's basketball more positive press than any beat writer we've had in years.

In part, that's because there weren't many negatives to report. But Stephanie clearly went out of her way to develop feature stories on every key player on our roster, some she wrote about more than once. That's a far cry from some of the beat writers we've had in the past who did just the opposite. Their philosophy was that negative press sells newspapers, so they set out to dig up as much dirt as they could, which wasn't all that difficult two years ago.

Tramel clearly didn't do his homework in the article he wrote, "College hoops has a pulse." He still has Dominique Elliott as one of our recruits coming in next year. But on the whole, I really didn't see much wrong with the rest of what he had to say.

I may be making a mistake by bragging on Stephanie Kuzydym too much. Now that we finally have a good one, at least in my opinion, the Oklahoman will banish her to parts unknown and we'll be back where we were when every other newspaper you picked up had nothing but bad things to say about OU basketball.
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wow
 
SoonerBounce13 said:
wow
Click to expand...

Really? Is your memory that bad or are you being your usual stubborn self? ;)

Seriously, I think Stephanie Kuzydym has done a great job in covering OU basketball. I went to a good deal of trouble to prove my point.

Here's a list of the articles and feature stories published with her byline in the months of February and March. I repeat, that's only two months of press coverage on OU men's basketball, all of it positive. The links below do not include weekly coverage of all of the games, nor do they include articles written by other Oklahoman reporters. These are articles (most of them feature stories about players) Stephanie wrote in a two months period. I didn't go back beyond the end of February.

If you don't want to take the time to read the articles, at least click on the links and you'll see what I mean:


http://newsok.com/oklahoma-basketball-buddy-hield-and-his-healer/article/3767957

http://newsok.com/oklahoma-basketball-fans-can-send-off-the-sooners-on-wednesday/article/3767667

http://newsok.com/ou-basketball-lon...fifth-team-to-ncaa-tournament/article/3767020

http://newsok.com/oklahoma-basketba...romero-osbys-seal-of-approval/article/3765300

http://newsok.com/oklahoma-mens-bas...not-take-cyclones-for-granted/article/3764707

http://newsok.com/oklahoma-mens-bas...ways-has-a-good-word-to-offer/article/3764170

http://newsok.com/oklahoma-mens-bas...ways-has-a-good-word-to-offer/article/3764170

http://newsok.com/oklahoma-basketba...-learned-lessons-the-hard-way/article/3760521

http://newsok.com/mbaye-records-double-double-in-win/article/3757607

http://newsok.com/oklahoma-basketball-krugs-krew-working-to-get-ou-students-involved/article/3758368

http://newsok.com/oklahoma-basketball-what-does-beating-kansas-mean-for-oklahoma/article/3753973

http://newsok.com/oklahoma-basketba...ner-nation-as-ou-beats-kansas/article/3753833

http://newsok.com/sooners-set-off-celebration/article/3753832

http://newsok.com/oklahoma-mens-bas...ormula-is-working-at-oklahoma/article/3751307

http://newsok.com/oklahoma-mens-bas...s-sooners-are-making-progress/article/3750880
 
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I don't read her stuff because she was absolutely terrible in football. If she is better at bball then thats great. But i will not be wasting my time reading her stuff
 
SoonerBounce13 said:
I don't read her stuff because she was absolutely terrible in football. If she is better at bball then thats great. But i will not be wasting my time reading her stuff
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I think she improved as the season went on, and I certainly felt like she went above and beyond with her volume of materials. I hope she keeps progressing much like our freshmen trio!
 
BigTime said:
I think she improved as the season went on, and I certainly felt like she went above and beyond with her volume of materials. I hope she keeps progressing much like our freshmen trio!
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Honestly, her articles have been better than most OU basketball coverage we have seen in years. At their worst they are fluff, but at their best they are solid. Young writers often struggle like she has. Still, she is decent and building connections with the team and coaches. If she sticks around we may end up with a competent writer, interested in cover basketball, with the connections to do it.
 
MNsooner said:
Honestly, her articles have been better than most OU basketball coverage we have seen in years. At their worst they are fluff, but at their best they are solid. Young writers often struggle like she has. Still, she is decent and building connections with the team and coaches. If she sticks around we may end up with a competent writer, interested in cover basketball, with the connections to do it.
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I'm in the cut her some slack camp. Too much fluff stuff. But, as the team gets better some of the older writers will show up for more games and crank out something to go along with hers.
 
BigTime said:
I think she improved as the season went on, and I certainly felt like she went above and beyond with her volume of materials. I hope she keeps progressing much like our freshmen trio!
Click to expand...

MNsooner said:
Honestly, her articles have been better than most OU basketball coverage we have seen in years. At their worst they are fluff, but at their best they are solid. Young writers often struggle like she has. Still, she is decent and building connections with the team and coaches. If she sticks around we may end up with a competent writer, interested in cover basketball, with the connections to do it.
Click to expand...

Thank you! That's all I'm saying.

To set the record straight, I'm no fan of the Oklahoman. Some of their reporters seem to go out of their way to produce negative press about OU. That has not been the case with Stephanie Kutzdym.

Unlike two years ago, of course, it helped that she had more good things to talk about this season. I particularly appreciated her feature stories about our players. If she continues as OU's beat writer, I hope to see more of them next season.
 
Her article for tomorrows paper will rile some up. But, I think she nailed it. Not much fluff.
 
I know the Daily Oklahoman Sports Editor Mike Sherman and he told me that her strength was story telling and that is exactly right, she is an excellent story teller.

As she gains experience covering a beat she will improve. Covering beats aren't always easy. Fans that really follow OU basketball won't be as impressed (they get their information on this site) as others that are more casual fans.

It takes time for young writers to find their way, she'll be fine.
 
garyeb2 said:
Her article for tomorrows paper will rile some up. But, I think she nailed it. Not much fluff.
Click to expand...

Just read the article online. The fluff is mixed in with the truth. I don't mind that at all. Anyone who gets riled up is in denial. I
 
I don't doubt that she is an extremely hard worker. I didn't mean to insinuate that she is MIA on the job. Ada is correct to point out that she has run some really nice features on some of the players. My point is that when you compare the quality of her work to some of the previous beat writers we've had, it's not even close. It appears to me that the job of covering OU sports at The Oklahoman has been significantly downgraded.
 
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