The Philly Pro $ports Media


Listen to the answer at the 5:19 mark. Do you love this guy or what?

Not a good day for the old Chevy Cavalier on Tuesday.
Went jogging for a couple of hours then, just as the sun was setting, I turned the ignition over and nothing happened.
I got the car towed to Pep Boys, sat in there for an hour and the guy came up to me and said: “Sorry I won’t be able to get to it tonight. It looks like a fuel pump. I don’t have enough mechanics.”
So I had to take the 96 bus from Montgomery Mall to the Lansdale train station, get off at the Jenkintown train station to hop another train to Somerton and the 58 bus home.
While at Pep Boys, though, I was able to read up on the coverage the Temple Owls received in The Daily News the past couple of days.
It took me all of seven minutes to read one story, only part of it was devoted to Temple’s 38-7 win at Maryland.
As impressed as I was with the Owls on Saturday, that’s how unimpressed I was with the Daily News over the last two days.
Let’s start with Monday first.

The theme of Mike Kern’s story was not to praise Temple, but bury Maryland. He even put Maryland into his “Fraud Five.” Why? For losing to Temple? That is a not well-disguised rip at Temple.


Temple was coming off the biggest BCS win possibly in its non-BCS history and both the back and the front covers had full-page Eagles’ photos.
Sixteen (that’s right, 16) more pages of Eagles followed, then a page devoted to the Jets-Raiders and the “NFC East this week” followed by another page of “around the league”  and two more pages of “NFL scoreboard”, three Phillies pages, a page devoted to an NBA pickup game and another page for the Flyers.
Finally, I find Temple on page 67 and that’s twenty-nine (right, 29) pages into the sports section.
The theme of Mike Kern’s story was not to praise Temple, but bury Maryland. He even put Maryland into his “Fraud Five.”
Why?

The Inquirer’s Keith Pompey has done a fantastic job. Last year, Kevin Tatum wrote one short story on each Temple game and used the quotes handed out on printed sheets by the SID. Pompey busted his stones and wrote three outstanding stories on the win over Maryland.


For losing to Temple? That is a not well-disguised rip at Temple. If Kern felt Temple was good, there was no reason to put Maryland in the Fraud Five. He provided no real good explanation for the rip.
How is Maryland not a fraud for beating Miami (Fla.) and a fraud for losing to Temple?
It’s not like Maryland was beaten by a bad team. What Temple is Kern going by, the Temple of 30 years ago?
He certainly is not going by the Temple that is 16-0 when Bernard Pierce gets the ball 18 or more times a game. Or maybe he just doesn’t know that fact.
Tuesday’s DN was worse.
Four pages of Eagles’ coverage was followed by four pages of Phillies coverage.
Another page was devoted to college basketball and the next page was high school football.
Not a single word about the Temple Owls.
I can see the interest in the Eagles, but it has become ad naseum.
An Eagle sneezes at the Nova Care Center and Comcast reports on it and hands the guy a tissue.
Sports talk radio is even worse.
Thank God for the great coverage in the Philadelphia Inquirer, with a front-page of the paper photo followed by the lede story and photo on the cover of the sports section Sunday as well.
The Inquirer’s Keith Pompey has done a fantastic job. Last year, Kevin Tatum wrote one short story on each Temple game and used the quotes handed out on printed sheets by the SID.
Pompey busted his stones and wrote three outstanding stories on the win over Maryland.
The Daily News, when it comes to Temple, is no better than fish rap.
The DN has, like my car, a broken story pump when it comes to providing even a smidgen of fairness in its coverage.
It’s not worth the dollar.

6 thoughts on “The Philly Pro $ports Media

  1. It's going to take some time for the media and city to latch on to this team. While the Maryland game was huge, it unfortunately followed a loss to Philadelphia's adopted team, Penn State. It drives me crazy.I listen a lot to college football nation on XM radio. They have been talking more about Temple than the DN. If Temple runs the table, I think the city will start to take notice.Let's hope the Phillies game is not at 12:00 on Saturday. It would seem like a ghost town in the stadium. I think the 7:00 slot would be the best thing for TU.

  2. I took ESPN's ACC Blogger Heather Dinnich to task for the same thing; Why was the loss to Temple indefensible for Maryland? The DN is a rag, but ESPN is supposed to be the "World Wide Leader." Maryland got tons of pub for beating Al Golden's depleted Miami squad, but none of their talking heads gave Temple more than a cursory mention; they also focused on Maryland and how inconceivable it was for them to lose.

  3. Kern's ripping Maryland for losing to Temple is not him "doing his job."I should know a little about the job, having won a first-place award for best sports story in Pennsylvania and two APSE national awards for best news story and best feature story.With that background, it's my humble opinion that Keith Pompey does a terrific job covering the Owls and Mike Kern has done a crappy job (at least this year) of covering the Owls.

  4. Keith Pompey is the best everm for covering Temple. He's taken to the job like a real beat reporter, which to my experienced, has never happened before. For Mike Kern, even though he's been covering Temple for years, for him it's an afterthought. He'd rather be covering the Eagles and golfing. DN has too many sports writers to be treating the best college story in years like this. I'm glad to see that you have the guts to make this public.

  5. http://www.youtube.com/user/TempleAthleticsThis video was sent to Temple Students and Alumni this morning via President Ann Weaver Hart, the email was a nice encouraging message to fans to step up their efforts this weekend and attend them game. Very nice indeed.

  6. I can see the attention paid to the Phillies, so I won't fault the DN on that. The Eagles coverage is becoming a bit much, and the DN will carry a lot of the responsibility if/when the season turns into a disappointment, for the hype they've built. On the other hand, the DN is the "city's paper." It's written for a mass demographic; the inquirer is another story entirely. One plus is, we couldn't get a clearer barometer of success; when Temple makes the front cover of the DN, we'll know for sure it's been accepted and the city is reaching 6-for-6 status when it comes to sports. From what I've seen online, a lot of the local and smaller papers around the city though have done pretty admirable jobs covering the games. They seem a lot more willing to accept that it's "Temple is good" and not "Maryland/Penn State/UConn is bad." (The Trenton Times in particular, if I'm remembering right, has done a nice share of justice to the owls.)It's changing. On the ground, most undergrads now don't remember when the football team was bad. So long as there is kindling, the fire'll keep burning, I think. Like Philly& said, thanks for calling them out on this though.

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