Letter to the Editor Richmond Times Dispatch

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1robertnunnally

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Letter to the Editor...Richmond Times Dispatch sent Saturday Feb. 5th

Letter to the Editor (or Sports Editor)

Imagine my surprise, when for the second time in 10 days, it appears that the wrong newspaper was left in my driveway!!! On January 27th, I thought I had gotten a paper from Long Island, and then today, I thought I received a Harrisonburg paper!
With a full color photo of basketball player, Charles Jenkins from Hofstra...and a full feature article on his talents and prowess, and then today a similar full color action photo of Denzel Bowles of James Madison University and an article touting all of his accomplishments...what else could a normal VCU Basketball fan think?
I know what I think! Another slight by the Richmond Times Dispatch of Virginia Commonwealth University Basketball!
Why in the world would you think that a City that is full of VCU students and alumni would want to see such articles, or much less want to read them?
I wonder if the hometown papers of these two players featured such adoring pictures and articles about some of VCU's best players? I think not!
If you are looking for something to fill up the front page of your sports page, how about color photos and feature articles of some of the great home town basketball players? I might suggest Brandon Rozell from Highland Springs, or Bradford Burgess from Benedictine. A feature on the success of Eric Maynor or Larry Sanders would be nice, or even stories about Michael Anderson and B.A. Walker on basketball life after VCU, would be a big improvement.
Wake up TD Sports! Give me something better to do with the sports section other than using it in the bottom of my bird's cage!

A Disgruntaled VCU Basketball Fan
Barbara Nunnally
 
Great letter Barb,
I'd be stunned if they printed it. Thanks for sharing and welcome to the Boards.
 
You do realize that the RTD has a circulation outside of Richmond right? And that the Richmond area has more people who didn't go to VCU than did? I love the Rams too, but I like some variety in the articles. Is there actually anything the RTD can tell us about the Rams that we don't get from this site, from Chris K, from facebook and twitter feeds?
 
Let them write articles about superstar players from other teams...worked out well for us last week.
 
Rambunctious said:
You do realize that the RTD has a circulation outside of Richmond right? And that the Richmond area has more people who didn't go to VCU than did? I love the Rams too, but I like some variety in the articles. Is there actually anything the RTD can tell us about the Rams that we don't get from this site, from Chris K, from facebook and twitter feeds?
Click to expand...

I'm from Williamsburg, Va and I never saw any full color articles about Eric Maynor or Larry Sanders. :evil:
 
Lots of JMU grads around the Richmond area and the school is only a couple of hours away.
 
The articles were fine, but they should have come at the expense of an article about VCU. They didn't do that to Tech, UVA or UR and they have played some pretty good opponents as well. They are fun to read AFTER the game though.
 
I have written a number of letters to the Editor as well as the Sports Editors in regard to the lack of coverage provided to The VCU basketball team. None of them has ever been published. On the other hand I have had a number of letters published on the Opinion page and once was correspondent of the day. They seem to not notice or don't care whether they offend their constituency or not.

It may be only a perception that the RTD pays short shrift to the program and the University, but it is a perception shared by the great a majority of posters on these boards, myself included.

In a time when the print media fights daily for relevance and even survival, it defies reason why they continue to ignore and rub wrong the very readership they so crave.
 
So...they've written 2 very nice articles about a star on teams we've played the day of/before game time. Each time we've won...from one view, this does VCU good b/c the casual reader may be thinking '...VCU is going to lose against Denzel/JMU or Charles/HU...'.

However, I don't think the RTD is that smart or that much of a VCU fan...but in the end...it doesn't really matter if they speak for/against us...let our record speak for itself.

So...wonder who they're going to highlight from Delaware in Wednesday's edition? :lol:
 
There have been a lot of VCU articles in the RTD this year and there are only two examples out of 25 game days so far in which we can cite articles not about VCU. In both cases they were the best two players (arguably) in the league - - 2 NBA prospects, one at a VA school two hours from RTDs office. I just don't see the big deal. Are we that sensitive, and do we have that much of an inferiority complex, that the largest paper in the state (I think :?: ) cannot run a couple of articles about our opposition? Hey, everyone is entitled to an opinion. I actually enjoyed reading them. I will LMAO if there is an article about Cam Long when we play Mason!
 
It's a long season (32+ games). It's pretty common for papers to use these opportunities to break up coverage with topics like this. How many articles are you going to write about Brad and Brandon, honestly? During the season, there are generally, a minimum of four articles related for VCU basketball in some fashion, which means, including game stories and advances, there will be well over 100 articles and features to write, and that's not including columns or sidebars, which can add another 10 or more.

I really don't understand why this upsets people so much. Personally, I'd love to know as much as possible about the team we're going to play. That's part of covering the beat, writing about both the team you're covering, things that affect the team you're covering, and the opponents you'll be playing.

Additionally, JMU is in the TD's coverage area, so why shouldn't they write something about JMU? Earlier this season, JMU's boards were going crazy about the TD not covering them. Now, something is written about them and this board goes nuts. Can't make everybody happy.
 
go look at the number of articles for UR vs VCU They run articles the day before and the day of every game. sometimes they run articles 3 days ahead of a game. that's fine. If we had more than one article per game then articles about opponents are more than fine.
no one has mentioned the 4 up 4 down backhanded slap from last sunday when mentioned coach smart that if he kept winning he could start expecting phone calls from more prestigious schools. F the T-D
 
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