New National Masters News stumbles out of blocks
February’s edition of National Masters News, speeding to mailboxes around the country, is the first under new management. Lots of changes. New headline font (Optima Extra Black.) New body type (bigger, easier to read). Much better photography (action shots instead of: “Hey, everyone, line up and smile!”) And best of all — news that’s news to me! (Best examples: 1970s running icon Jan Merrill, now 50, is making a mile comeback! M50 sprint god Kevin Morning saying, “Some of my fastest marks have come when I did not stretch.”) But amid the move from Eugene to the Sacramento area, the paper had some hiccups.
No wonder. Publisher Randy Sturgeon and editor Juliet Wahleithner are the staff. That’s it. And the first issue looks it, with errors in proofreading and design that made me shudder:
— Twice misspelling former NMN editor/publisher Al Sheahen’s name as “Sheehan.”
— Labeling the USATF Masters chair’s column as “Gary Snyder colum”
— An obituary submitted by Bob Fine for “Phil Partridge, age 92, (who) died in May 2003″ (This is news?)
— Inch-deep black bars and 2 1/2-inch circle logos atop each page that rob valuable real estate from news, results and schedules.
Publisher Randy wrote me: “Some mistakes got by as we were rushed at printing due to some changes with our printer and didn’t do the final check like we should have. That will be corrected.” He also is resolving some online-payment headaches, and promises to focus on the paper’s Web site as well.
The old NMN lives on with Page 2 devoted to names and addresses of USATF officials, the back of the paper devoted to schedules and results, and various columns. Gary Snyder’s column is now joined by Don Lein’s — he’s the USATF Masters LDR chairman. From the UK, Bridget Cushen reports on British masters as usual, and Mike Tymn retains his “Third Wind” space. Elaine Ward does her racewalker interview thing.
But a few things are missing. “Write On!” — the letters section — is absent. (That simply MUST return; it’s the most popular feature of the paper.) Pete Mundle’s list of “Athletes who enter a new division this month” is history. We don’t see the All-American Standards charts. (They should go online anyway.) And amost nothing about jumps and throws.
My other quibbles are more substantive.
Julie attended the USATF National Club Cross Country Championships in San Francisco (taking some nice photos), but Randy wrote the cover story. It’s a disappointment. Not a single quote.
The story could have been composed from 10,000 miles away. We know who won, Randy. Share the smells of the event. Treat us to stuff we don’t know from the results site.
And editing matters.
We learn in a front-page story that “Alisa Harvey broke her own masters women’s world mile record in a meet at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, on January 8th.” But the item doesn’t say what age group Alisa runs in. Key element. (She’s 41.)
And who took the photo?
A front-page feature by Ron Marinucci tells about W55 runner Maggy Zidar, who averages 100 races a year. Nice profile, good quotes. But please restrain Ron when he gets cutesy in the copy. (After Maggy says, “I run every morning before school, at 4:30,” Ron follows with: Now that’s a “personal challenge.” And after she talks about not wanting to “work” at running, Ron self-indulges with: “Of course, the frequent racing qualifies as some sort of speed work, er, speed play.”)
That’s junior-high journalism. Use the delete key.
Still, I see signs of hope from Randy and Juliet — a willingness to listen, to grow.
In his column, Randy writes: “Juliet and I hope to hear from you on your ideas and suggestions on the website and also the publication.”
I’ve already given him a few ideas. Mostly, I just enouraged him to break out of the neutrality box. To start expressing opinions on the sport. To show some spunk.
Unlike Lou Grant, I like spunk.
Here’s the new NMN:
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9 Responses
I appreciate the comments on the first issue of NMN Ken has posted here, though I am feeling the sting a bit. However, that is more from agreeing with his comments than anything else.
I would like to address his concern with the “Write On” section. We fully intend to bring that back. However, somewhere in the midst of the move, letters to publish in this section were lost. Again, that’s our fault for not following up on the matter. But I do want to assure readers that we welcome your comments and letters and look forward to publishing them in the future.
And as for the new age divisions, we are planning to bring those back as well.
The rest of the comments, well, as a former journalism teacher, I agree whole-heartedly!
Thanks so much for all of your support as we continue to work through this transition.
I agree with much of what has been said with two exceptions. First, one thing I have learned in 30 plus years of writing and publishing is you cannot assume that the reader has already seen certain information. I talk to people everyday who are seriouls track athletes or distance runners who have never heard of National Masters News or many of the websites or blogs. Many, even if they are aware, don’t regularly visit them if at all for various reasons. So I believe it is important not to assume people already know something.
The second thing is the obiturary. It had not been published yet to my knowledge and I was asked to publish it by a person who is very prominent in the masters community and so I did not hesitate to publish it. Even though some might view it as not news. Some things are done just for the record.
Again, we appreciate all comments and take them to heart. Also, I want thank all the people who have been so helpful and supportive during the transition. As always glitches happen and we will get these things ironed out.
Randy Sturgeon
Publisher National Masters News
Juliet and Randy, I commend you on taking on this major challenge. This paper is very useful to me and though there may be changes because of new owners, I have confidence the meat of the content will prevail. As you have indicated, you are willing and actually encouraging people to provide feedback. Appropriate consideration of that feedback will assure NMN remains the paper for Masters competitors.
– John
I have not received my copy but await it’s arrival. It is always difficult to hear the criticism but I beleive it was sent with the passion to see a great product.
I want to see meet results. I’d like to see pics. Upcoming meet info is great.
I spent this past year retooling myself concerning competing and have found many resourses, NMN and this site to name a few, that have really helped.
I’m not a big poster (more of a reader) but I want to encourage you to continue to bring us NMN!!!!
I have not received my copy as yet and eagerly await it. No transition is smooth so we all need to be patient. I hope that with time the NMN website will become more up to date and even updated within each month rather than the rather dated version we have all come to know and mostly ignore. Suzy and Jerry did a great job and hand off to the new management a very useful monthly newspaper. New ownership brings a new perspective and perhaps a greater appreciation of the opportunities the web brings for wider distribution. As much as I dislike having to pay for a subscription to websites perhaps this might be something to consider for those who may prefer web-based paper to hard copy or who live in areas of the world where it is too expensive or takes too long to deliver a hard copy. Another masters blog by NMN would be good – give Ken some competition and competition is what makes us all better!
I’m glad to hear Jan Merrill is making a comeback. We are friends who haven’t talked in a while, and I hope I run into her at the track very soon.
Randy and Juliet get nothing but huge kudos from me for recognizing what the previous NMN team never seemed to: that the Masters Club Cross-Country Championship is one of the premier events in masters competition and deserves front page coverage! Frankly, there’s no other masters event like it – for both competition and camaradery – and I’ll take Randy’s recap (if a bit fuzzy on the actual details) over the page 8 or 12 or 27 mini-report we’ve gotten in the past. I’d also like to thank Randy for actually putting in print that my club, Team Runners High, had won 3 Club Championships in a row … You’d think someone might have mentioned that last year (when we actually won our third in a row), but NMN has traditional treated this biggest masters cross-country race of the year like a second tier event.
As far as I’m concerned, things are already looking up.
So I’ll leave it to Ken to correct the typos, but personally I’m excited as heck to see NMN embrace a new direction.
Personally, I was not inspired by the first issue. Of course, I will give it a chance. It looked like a lot of big writing without much content. Give us some throws please.
I agree, Charles. Long on presentation, somewhat short on content. But many times, publications will devote full energy toward presentation of the first “new and improved” issue at the expense of content. Once formatting changes have been implemented, energies can be spent on content.
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