New Players Are Stepping Up To Bat In D.C.'s Sports Media Scene

1975 Press Photo Sportswriter Lynn Rosellini
At Washington Star Desk

George Solomon, director of the University of Maryland’s Shirley Povich Center for Sports Journalism, and formerly The Post’s assistant managing editor for sports from 1975 to 2003, has noticed a broad shift in news over the last 15 years.

“Digital and visual have really come on strong, and because of that, the newspaper circulation nationwide has declined,” he says. “With that, newspapers and now websites have tried to counter that by being more inventive, more creative, to appeal to a younger audience.”

And with fans now getting real-time game updates on their phones, they’re not as reliant on the paper, or even home pages of websites, for basic recaps and box scores. Readers expect features, opinion, and analysis—the type of sports coverage that afternoon papers like The Washington Star used to put out to differentiate themselves and serve readers, notes Aldridge.

“I think we’re all sort of PMers [a term for afternoon papers] now, in that regard,” he says. “Everybody has to kind of approach it from the standpoint of, the fan knows the score, they know who won or who lost. You have to tell them why or how that happened.”

Attribution:  Ethan MCleod, dcist.com

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