Response from the Advocate
Very long, but wanted to share the response I received (very promptly) when I let them know my displeasure over the whole UL name issue.
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I just finished writing to another reader about this issue, so let me borrow from that response. (By the way, his suggestion was to refer to Louisiana as Louisiana in The Acadiana Advocate, and as we move forward, that's an idea that has merit.) … Clearly, we've added a beat writer, Luke Johnson, who got started, full go, over the weekend. So, we're just now starting to delve into what we're capable of with boots on the ground and eyes that can direct our coverage. Now, I have to work on my end with my staff of editors and figure out all the swaps and all the boring but complicated stuff of producing what amounts to three Sports sections on deadline every night.
I sincerely want you to be an Advocate subscriber, and we all appreciate the generations of support. We're a local company, and we want what's best for our local readers and our local teams. If we all work together and support each other, I think we can do some really great stuff together. … We're at the very beginning of doing something good for your school.
So, we're not a massive corporation. In fact, a lot of folks would be surprised at how few people actually create and do as much as we do, but the point is, we can always talk -- I answer emails and I answer phones -- I'm always open to hear your views. And I understand and appreciate your passion on this issue.
-- J.Schiefelbein
And now, not to rewrite what I just finished writing, here is what I wrote to another gentleman:
We have been thinking about the Louisiana issue for some time. We're trying to figure out how best to do this. That piece about the name is something we discuss and something we are trying to figure out. So, we're trying to come up with the best solution, because we sell newspapers to both fanbases (with fans of both LSU and UL in Baton Rouge, of course, and then fans of both UL and LSU in Acadiana). And while both fanbases are tremendously passionate, they also can be quite thorny about the other. I hear from both sides on this issue. Having enjoyed covering then-USL from, gosh, 20 years ago, I'm certainly aware of how invested Louisiana fans are into this issue.
As you may know, we've become -- and are becoming -- three Sports sections at once, every night, and all the processes are extremely difficult (let alone when breaking news occurs). Just the mechanics of doing all of the swaps as well as building the coverage packages and weekly and daily budgets -- plus getting content to the web at the same time -- is a focus right now (yes, that, and the fact that we have seven special sections being produced in the next six weeks). It's a little like changing the tires on an 18-wheeler that never stops -- and now doing it three times a night. So, just because it didn't happen today and it won't immediately happen tomorrow doesn't mean that it's not something I and we are not giving tremendous thought toward.
Is it possible to refer to the school as UL or Louisiana in just The Acadiana Advocate? It may well be, and it's something I've been thinking about. But is it going to be a problem if we err and don't have the time to make the swap for Acadiana and then Louisiana fans doubt our sincerity to the move … but then, also, is it going to be a problem if we err and swap it for Acadiana and run out of time/forget to swap back for Baton Rouge? Or maybe we do the school reference just once, making it easier to swap in the lead paragraph and in headlines between editions? It might also be possible to do it online, because our interface allows us two distinct fields (regular text and web text). … Part of what I do, part of what we do, is try to figure out how to eliminate the errors and gremlins that inevitably happen when we're doing all of this in a rush, on deadline. It's a little easier right now, when we have so much copy coming in early from camps. But I also have to consider how fast and how crazy it is in March and April and May, when we have so much going on every night. … Or do we make the change once and for all and then all the LSU fans come unglued and stop buying our newspaper? … So, where we are is stuck in this battleground between the two fanbases and trying to come up with the best solution for both.
As we make the swaps more and more and as we add to our capability to do more in the Acadiana area (like having a sportswriter there -- hopefully, one day that can be two sportswriters, but I'm getting way ahead of myself), the concept of accomplishing this part where we roll that language as a priority into The Acadiana Advocate, as you are asking, becomes easier to do. So, especially in the past week, since Luke really got on board, this has been on my mind.
Just so you know, as of November, this newspaper no longer uses any reference to ULL (so, if you see it, that is an error, and please alert me). And also it has been our editorial style for years now that, should someone say UL or Louisiana in a direct quote, we do not use parentheses or rework the quote in any way (if someone does this, please alert me; our Sports staff should know this, and I try to communicate this as best I can to freelancers.)
I can tell you that what will happen in Acadiana is what happened in New Orleans in that we get better and better in what we're doing in that we will figure out how to do it a little better with each day and each season. … I can also tell you that we can get more coverage of your school into homes all across south Louisiana, and supporting us helps your school's brand. Nobody else had a full page of Sun Belt Conference media day coverage both on the day of and on the day after and nobody else but us had a full page preseason camp breakdown at all, let alone getting that content to homes across south Louisiana, from Crowley to the North Shore to Baton Rouge and the French Quarter. So, I think there's a lot we all can gain from a partnership.
Are we exactly the Sports section I want us to be in Lafayette/New Orleans or even Baton Rouge yet? We've made great strides in Baton Rouge and New Orleans. We've won the Louisiana Sports Writers Association sweepstakes for the past two years (and by a wide margin), and we hadn't won a sweepstakes since the 1970s. We were an APSE honorable mention in the most competitive segment for newspapers of our size across the country, and we hadn't had an APSE award like that since the late 1980s. And we were an APSE top 10 website for the first time. … And so now we're trying to make great strides in Lafayette. I've had a full-time beat writer in Lafayette for a little more than a week, and I can tell you that the past three days we've had fuller and better coverage than anyone else. That has to account for something. And we're just getting started (just now, as I'm typing, I got an email about the Ragin' Cajun report blog being set up.) … Unlike our competitors in New Orleans and Lafayette, we're a local company, and we try best to answer every question and try best to come up with solutions.
So, thanks for writing, and I really believe your idea has merit.
-- J.Schiefelbein
Just an FYI: long-time (generations, actually) Advocate fan here, but I stopped when you guys refused to call UL by the name we prefer.
GEAUX Cajuns, GEAUX UL, GEAUX Louisiana
Sent from my iPad
THE ADVOCATE
Joseph Schiefelbein
Executive Sports Editor
jschiefelbein@theadvocate.com
Tel: (225) 388-0321
www.theadvocate.com
Fax: (225) 388-0318
LPA Newspaper of the Year
Reaching 78% of area adults each week
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Originally Posted by ragincajun10
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