Posts tagged David Hale

David Hale is the Georgia beat Writer for the Macon Telegraph and the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer. I grew up reading both the Columbus Ledger and the Columbus Enquirer. Yes, this bloggin fool is that old. Hale is the genesis of the forthcoming rant.

I figure a rant in this blog is preferable to flying an airplane into one of the state’s printing presses. I will leave it at that.

I can pretty much give you a good assessment of every sportswriter to ever grace the pages of the Columbus papers. I can even pan Tim Chitwood. Guerry Clegg is my favorite, as he is the only surviving sports writer to ever write a story mentioning me as an athlete. Mr. Clegg even saw fit to award me some sort of Bi-City status.

I bore you with this information to stake my claim as a relevant evaluator of the journalistic talent to write for the Columbus paper, especially where it concerns the Dawgs. I am pretty sure Lewis Grizzard never wrote for the Columbus paper, but I believe he considered it. I am not much of a fact checker.

When I was growing up the amount of coverage the Dawgs got in the paper was inverse to the amount of advertising Tire King, Freeway Ford, or Bill Heard Chevrolet was willing to spend. The more they spent, the less column inches the Georgia stories received.

Charles Odum, who writes for the AP these days, was the guy in the Ledger and Enquirer back then. Business must have been good back in those days. I don’t know how many words Odum typed, but few actually made it to print in Columbus.

Things are different today. The internet has transformed coverage of sports. Especially for mid and small-market dwellers. I don’t actually purchase today’s Ledger-Enquirer or Telegraph, although I would if it were in a box at my gas station or waffle house.

The Valdosta paper has given up on covering major college sports in the state. Sure, Loren Smith has his column, but the real coverage of the Dawgs is left to the AP and unsold space. The Blazers of Valdosta State and the highly successful high school programs are the only profitable beats.

What does any of this have to do with David Hale? It is just my point of reference. Atlanta, and Athens, may have experienced better coverage of the Dawgs in the past, but no more.

A couple of middling towns in Georgia scarfed up a talent from the Albany paper and are absolutely kicking the Atlanta and Athens papers’ asses. It is evident in season and out. David Hale simply outworks the competition.

I had heard of blogs, but never read any. David started blogging, I started reading a blog. He even introduced me to fan blogs, in turn that inspired me to start my own. David Hale started Twittering I signed up. If the competition between beat writers were like a little league game, Hale would have been declared the winner after the fourth inning.

I don’t know David Hale personally. I know a little about him. We may have shopped in the same Happy Harry’s or dined from the same Wawa.

David is a Yankee. He went to Delaware and Syracuse. Joe Bidden can argue, during a primary campaign, that Delaware is not a Yankee state, but nobody can argue that Syracuse is not a Yankee school.

I “lived” in Wilmington, Delaware for four years. I can assure it is a Yankee state. They know unions, they know chemicals, they know corruption, they know nothing about grits, even less about college football. Breakfast consist of something called scrapple. It is kind of like the hotdog of breakfast.

From these environs cometh our David Hale. The newspaper guilds back home are surely sore with his work ethic.

I poke fun at Hale’s home in my drunken ravings merely to point out how pathetic our home-grown sports journalists have become. Hell, I am not sure any of them are home-grown anymore. I have no idea how a socialist organization like the AJC goes about assigning its beats, workloads, or expectations.

The Atlanta Journal and the Atlanta Constitution were once pillars of sports coverage. The combined AJC appears content to treat sports coverage as it does actual news, editorially. They offer twice the quantity of opinion as they provide reporting.

I was too late to experience the glory days of Athens journalism. The current commercial paper in Athens does nothing to represent or continue the heritage of sports journalism that preceded it. They are satisfied to measure themselves by the ever dissipating standards of the AJC.

The Red and Black has emerged as the source of local sports information and opinion in Athens.

I would love to hear Lewis Grizzard’s opinion on the state of coverage his beloved Bulldogs receive from the State’s mighty newspapers. I can only imagine, accompanied by the greats, he looks down in shame.

From this darkness, Hale separates himself, providing light for the blind Bulldog faithful.

When the editors and publishers limit his column inches, his redacted words find readers on the digital press of his blogs. I would not be surprised to learn his blogs are more widely read than the copy that escapes the printing presses in Columbus and Macon.

In today’s world of copy-cat journos and aggregating blogs, David Hale is a provider of original content, a reporter, a honest to goodness journalist. From my seat in south Georgia I can only discern he writes for the story. While he contemporaries write for the requirement with a constant eye on their word-count, Hale leaves the minimum to the editors’ concern. He delivers the maximum.

Eye on Sports Media recently lavished praise on Mr. Hale in the form of a newly created award. Many of my fellow Bulldog bloggers have offered their congratulations to Hale. I echo those sentiments.

In recognizing Hale I feel compelled to sound an alarm. As a provincial sort, I only follow beat writes from the SEC. I can not state with certainty there are not others out working Hale. I will state confidently, no beat writer within the confines of the SEC is grinding harder than our guy.

Not since Mark Schlabach have we been privilege to such excellence. In fact, Hale’s blog efforts far exceed anything we ever absorbed from Schlabach. To be fair, blogs were nothing near mainstream in Mark’s time on the beat.

My alarm, clarion call if you will, is focused on the future. Despite the misfortunes of print media, opportunities are going to open for the under-paid Hale. I am not privy to such information, but it is not hard to imagine the AJC is paying far heavier coin than the Macon-Columbus consortium. Of course, the AJC’s hiring practices are beyond logic.

ESPN? CBS? Certainly some SEC-centric purveyor of sports information and reporting will come knocking. Is Chris Low really the high-water mark for ESPN’s SEC coverage? How much money did they spend? Is there a bigger joke than CBS Sportsline?

Hell, Hale is qualified to jump right to columnist for CBS and The Sporting News. He is far more contemporary and relevant in his analysis than any of the clipboard licking coach-coddlers in their current employ.

When the inevitable happens, what will become of us? Where will our needs be met? Who is going to go above and beyond for us?

I can assure you the AJC will never make a priority of our passion. The Banner-Herald allows the AJC to set the standard. What happens. Does ISP fill the gap? Please!

Hale has not transformed the industry. He has only set himself apart from it. Our only hope is those that have toiled under his watch. A mighty force of two. Tyler Estep and Fletcher Page. How long before these two succumb to the journalistic solidarity of the lowest common denominator.

We read the AJC because it is the AJC. We read it because we are programmed to think we have to.

I may continue to give the Banner-Herald the benefit of the doubt for sentimental reasons, but they need to step their game up. Institutionally!

As consumers, we must demand more. We have grown complacent. We accept the minimum. We must not any longer. We must demand more from our press. Eyeballs, clicks and quarters must be withheld until they live up to their end of the deal.

David Hale has broken the 21st Century’s 4-minute mile of Bulldog beat journalism. We must demand the same from others. They have given up and this must not be accepted.

Hale is worth more than he is getting. His publishers have Cotillions and Coming Out parties to pay for. They are gonna let him get away.

We must act now. We must voice our dissatisfaction with the media in our state over the lack-luster coverage they are content to publish under their masthead. We must invoke the market forces which we control and demand more.

As the name suggest, I am BUI to the max. I enjoy reading. I crave reading about sports. When I can’t watch the Dawgs I want to read about them. Please, do not allow the coverage of our Dawgs to regress to the mean as established by the GD AJC.