Northern Illinois Sports Beat: The Annual State of the Site Address

The 2008 NISB State of the Site Address

I would like to thank you all for being here tonight for the fourth annual Northern Illinois Sports Beat State of the Site Address. This upcoming sports season will be the fifth season that will be covered. One year from now will be the fifth anniversary of Northern Illinois Sports Beat.

I like to sincerely thank all of those who post on the message board. It lets me know just how many people come to Northern Illinois Sports Beat. Plus, the message boards are the hallmark of the site. We�re unlike other boards in that what is posted on there is factual information. It seems that message boards are looked at in a negative light. I can understand that because there�s a bunch of anonymous people posting messages under names that do not match their own legal name. I can tell you, truthfully, that Northern Illinois Sports Beat is one of the most trusting boards in the state of Illinois. I don�t tolerate false statements and accusations. We don�t want to create or cause any problems here.

If you are just a visitor and reader of Northern Illinois Sports Beat�s articles and information, I�d like to invite you to the boards. Message boards are a way of knowing more information than you normally read about in a print source. That�s backed with the �I don�t tolerate false statements and accusations� guarantee. That�s what makes the board so great.

This year, I�m pleased to have Tyrone Anderson shoot pictures for us. Ty is a freelance photographer from Chicago who has shot pictures of some of our teams over the winter and spring. Most of his pictures are of Mount Carmel athletics. I like to thank Ty for his contributions this year.

Now to our technology: I know it�s not the best, but we�re making improvements. Three weeks ago, I began tweaking the naming process of each of the individual GeoCities pages. The home page was called �index� for some reason. I didn�t realize that that could be changed until recently, and I�ve made the changes. Hopefully, the search engine web crawlers will pick up on it. That way, the first link you see on a search engine will be named �Northern Illinois Sports Beat.�

We�ve also tried something new with the technical aspect of the site. We�ve kept links of the past game articles, rather than archiving them � and thus not being able to see them. You can view past stories and other stuff at the Story Archive link from as far back as the beginning of the school year. You may think that takes up a lot of space, but we�ve only used 20% of storage space allowed by GeoCities. Sixty-six percent of that 20 are articles. A good guess is that stories can be stored for at least three years.

Now that we�re done with discussing content storage, I�d like to talk about the content.

This year was a little erratic. I began the year writing game stories like I normally DID. I then turned to columns and sports news. Sports news items include hires, fires, conference changes and board meetings, which is the tip of the iceberg of possibilities.

The biggest problem I have with continuing forward with what I�m doing now is whether it crosses the line of acceptable content for high school athletics. The ones that determine that boundary are those in high school athletics. More than often, they are parents - the same group that has been active in personnel changes as of late.

I grew up in the high school sports writing profession as an old-school person. I believe in earning, not receiving. Apparently, today�s society wants innovation. But it can get by cut-and-dried. I don�t see where it cannot.

With that being said, I would like to keep on doing what I do for the 2008-09 school year. But I would like your opinion. At this time next year, I want an inbox full of opinions.

But seriously, I�m doing this in order to determine where that line is between acceptable and taboo. It will not only help me, but should help other high school sports journalists as well.

Since I won�t be doing a whole lot of game articles this upcoming year, it puts my state tournament coverage at risk. For Internet outlets, the Illinois High School Association determines press credentials for state tournaments based on coverage during the season. Obviously with the lack of traditional coverage, Northern Illinois Sports Beat will shift toward the bottom of the IHSA�s priority list.

I plead to the IHSA that Internet websites like Northern Illinois Sports Beat will soon become the future of news information. I would also like the IHSA to continue to honor any request for state tournament credentials for Northern Illinois Sports Beat. Just like newspapers, Northern Illinois Sports Beat is a news source. As long as I�m still Online, I will continue to fight for all Online sites like mine for equal status with newspapers. Online news websites should not be discriminated because of a foreign way of distribution.

I am underway in trying to put forth a PR effort with the 100 schools in the Northern Illinois Sports Beat coverage area. If there is an athletics-related news item coming from a school, I�d like to know about it. I�d also like to know what�s going on at our school board meetings. It�s just in an effort to find news stories to write about.

Going the news article route saves a lot of time. News items in that field are not as periodic as game stories. Quite simply, I do not have the time, or the gas money, to travel all over the area and see games and meets x-days a week. But that doesn�t mean I don�t care about high school sports � I DO care!

I am currently writing a piece on the state of Online sports journalism. Be looking forward to that in the future.

Another reason for the move to sports-news is the price of gas. Since I operate on my own, I don�t get reimbursed like other news sources do (the national average is $0.51 a mile). Treks to Rockford, the Quad Cities and Chicago area cost $10-20 in gas alone. If I covered six games a week, I�d be spending $300-500 a month in fuel. I have to turn to E-mail and phone conversations to gather quotes and notes for stories. That cuts out the travel and gas expense.

The rising cost of fuel has also limited my ability to travel to cities and towns to spread the word about Northern Illinois Sports Beat. Planned �tours� have been scrapped. I have yet to print out many flyers for distribution in Sterling alone.

If you would like to help spread the word about Northern Illinois Sports Beat, here�s how you can help: I will post links to pictures of the flyers, flyer notes and business cards that I use to spread the word. If you would like to help with this cause, you can E-mail me for a copy of what you would like. You can then print out as many copies as you want and put them up wherever you want.

I�m going to be up at Highland Community College in Freeport this year. Sauk doesn�t offer journalism anymore, so I�m taking it up at Highland. Plus, I�ll be working at another job somewhere. It will give me plenty of time to write what I�m writing.

I�m looking forward to the 2008-09 school year. I�m also looking forward to seeing the fuel expenses (NOT). I�ve got some stuff lined up this summer and going into the fall. Hopefully I�ll see you at an event somewhere.

I guess that is all for the NISB State of the Site Address. If you've got any questions, comments or concerns, you can always drop me a line. I believe the future looks bright for the NISB and will survive another year. Each year should be better than the rest.

Thank you for your support!

Cody Cutter
Publisher, Northern Illinois Sports Beat