Media Watch

TUCSONCITIZEN.COM ADDS TO SPORTS PRESENCE WITH J-LAB
GRANT

TucsonCitizen.com recently received a $50,000 grant.

Well, now the money is here. How did the Gannett-owned Web site go
about best spending it?

Editor Mark Evans had two approaches in mind.

“The two areas I wanted to focus on were watchdog
journalism/watchdog community reporting; and sports,” Evans said. “For
watchdogs … there aren’t that many (worthy bloggers to hire) that are
Tucson- and county-driven. There are a lot of blog sites with strong
political opinions where they’re doing some citizen journalism, but it
wasn’t watchdog stuff where people are holding feet to the fire on
budgets and accounting diligence and so forth. So I fell back to sports
and scratched my head to try to figure out how I was going to pull that
off.”

Evans’ option was Anthony Gimino, who has experience covering
the UA football beat with the Tucson Citizen and
Arizona Daily Star. He also put in a stint at a national
Web site and most recently acted as the sports columnist for the
Citizen prior to the paper’s print closure in May.

“Anthony’s great,” said Evans. “He is a phenomenal sports journalist
and was hip to the idea.”

In addition to making his own online contributions, Gimino’s job is
to attract a corps of local bloggers and cross-promote their respective
Web sites while using TucsonCitizen.com as something of a
one-stop online shop for perspectives on UA and high school sports. Two
people with lengthy print journalism
résumés—Javier Morales, who worked for the
Citizen and the Star in the ’90s, and longtime
Citizen UA men’s basketball beat writer Steve
Rivera—are already in the fold.

“The initiative from the grant at (American University) J-Lab is to
bring in independent voices in the community and put them under one
umbrella,” Gimino said. “Javier fits in that category, because he’s
running wildaboutazcats.com. We’re
bringing in a guy who writes and posts for UAsports.net. Rivera has his own Web
site. I’ll be looking for a couple of other people to fill out the
roster. We’re trying to bring in people who are writing independently
about Tucson sports.”

The effort will focus mostly on contributions involving UA sports
and high school athletics.

“You can’t have enough UA sports blogs in this town,” Evans said.
“The demand is sensational. And the readers go from one to the next to
another, and they’ll comment on each one of them. We’re looking at the
UA and high school stuff (and may) even find someone who will blog
about Phoenix pro teams. I know in Tucson, the pro-sports connection
has more to do with where you’re from than being an affiliate with the
Phoenix pro team, but there’s a lot of interest in the Cardinals and
Diamondbacks and the Suns down here. Anthony is looking at maybe
getting someone to write about those. And as much as I’d hate to admit
it, there are some people down here who went to school in Tempe who are
more interested in Arizona State University, so you might even see some
Sparky lovers on TucsonCitizen.com.”

Of the five outlets that received the J-Lab grant, TucsonCitizen.com is the only one that
doesn’t have a print presence. The other grant recipients might
approach the experiment in a more scattershot fashion, attempting to
incorporate bloggers with a variety of interests—entertainment,
business, travel, etc.—within the newspaper site umbrella,
whereas Evans decided on a more focused effort.

“We’ll see if it works,” Evans said. “It’s definitely going to be
unique to what some of the other newspapers are doing, but I think it’s
something that can generate interest.”

Said Gimino, “What TucsonCitizen.com in general is doing
is new. They’re trying to add new bloggers all the time. It’s part of
the reason they want to study this, (to) see what works, what doesn’t
work and maybe get out in front of a trend in terms of consolidation.
Sports-wise, there are a lot of independent sports voices in town other
than the Daily Star. Because we can bring in at least five other
people, it will be a mix. We’ll have guys who might be able to break
news (and) guys who will sit back and analyze from a fan’s point of
view. Somebody who goes to the site will find something they like. If
we can grow a community, it’s good for us and good for the fans.”

MOTEN CUTS TUCSON TIES

Carrie Moten, who recently left the JohnJay and
Rich radio program—which broadcast from Phoenix but
syndicated on four other Clear Channel stations, including KRQQ FM
93.7 in Tucson—has also discontinued her involvement with two
other projects that have an Old Pueblo connection.

Moten is no longer the host of The Very Bad Movie,
which airs Saturday nights/Sunday mornings from midnight to 2 a.m. on
KTTU Channel 18. Additionally, she has stopped podcasting at
Tucson-based radioexiles.com.

“The Very Bad Movie was great, and I loved being the force
behind its launch three years ago, and I enjoyed radioexiles a ton, but
unfortunately, at this stage of my career, and (considering) the fact
that I’m not in Tucson as much as I’d wish to be, I can’t devote the
time to those projects that they deserve,” Moten said via e-mail.

The Very Bad Movie began its fourth season on Sept. 26 with
new co-hosts Shannon Black and … um … some schlub named
John Schuster.

“I’m so excited about co-hosting The Very Bad Movie—to
go on TV and do something silly. Why not?” said Black.

Belo Tucson creative services director Brian Baltosiewich,
who founded radioexiles, explains: “I’m sure I will live to regret
asking John to be involved, but desperate times call for desperate
measures. Shannon was the natural choice. Schu? Any port in the
storm.”

Black co-hosts the morning show on KIIM FM 99.5.

Schuster is also on the radio. He co-hosts UA football and men’s
basketball pregame and postgame shows on KCUB AM 1290 and
podcasts at radioexiles.com. He
also writes the Media Watch column for the Tucson Weekly, where
he sometimes gets to refer to himself in the third person.

This article appears in Oct 1-7, 2009.