Skip to content

Opinion: Why don’t you have a dedicated sports reporter at The Squamish Chief?

If you are a summer team that would like to be covered, reach out, and we can talk about how we can best do that.
sportsequiptment137352556
But it is also very democratizing. Rather than an elitist journalism attitude of “the people need to read this stellar piece of my work,” analytics tell us what people really are reading.

Squamish is a sporty town — a recreation capital and all that.

And yet, we haven’t had a dedicated sports reporter in recent years.

Why?

The short answer is resources — we are a three-person newsroom — and, more importantly,  your reading habits.

Yes, you, dear reader.

Media has a lot of access to analytics these days.

And analytics don’t lie.

It is often shocking for reporters to see what stories are well-read and which aren’t.

But it is also very democratizing. Rather than an elitist journalism attitude of “the people need to read this stellar piece of my work,” analytics tell us what people really are reading.

And community sports stories are not what most folks in town want to read, despite what they might say.

Let’s look at the data — for the last 30 days, sports was the ninth most read section of our website. Out of our 10 main sections. Local news, community stories,  opinion and local arts all had more readership than sports.

Put another way, there isn’t a single sports story in the Top 40 stories of the last month.

While our average stories are read by thousands of folks, sports stories, even the ones that are widely shared, rarely get hundreds of reads.

This is consistent over time and at various media outlets, not just The Squamish Chief.

Does this mean we won’t cover sports?

No, we love community sports.

Local sports bring people together. They create a sense of community, build character and teamwork, and help us escape daily problems.

Featuring young athletes helps them get exposure, too.

We are currently trying to sort out how to cover sports better with the resources we have.

But we also need your help with this. We can’t cover everything.

If you are a summer team that would like to be covered, reach out, and we can talk about how we can best do that. (editor@squamishchief.com)

And if you want to see more sports, show it by reading about local athletes when we feature them.

If you are a Squamish business that would like to sponsor more sports coverage overall, contact Cathie, our sales manager — cgreenlees@squamishchief.com, as there’s a program for that.

If you like this behind-the-scenes look at journalism, sign up for our email newsletter. We dive into a new topic each week. Go to www.squamishchief.com/account/mailinglist.

push icon
Be the first to read breaking stories. Enable push notifications on your device. Disable anytime.
No thanks