From The Sports Editor's Desk: Each Sunday morning, Sports Editor Chris Carr or Senior Assistant Sports Editor Naila-Jean Meyers write to Star Tribune Sports readers.
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A question we ask ourselves several times a day in the (currently virtual) Star Tribune Sports department is: What stories should we put on the cover?
"The cover" is the front page of the print section. We usually put four stories on the cover, sometimes three, sometimes five. Sometimes these debates last 30 seconds, sometimes 10, 15 minutes. I often wish I could somehow share these debates and conversations with our readers. You'd enjoy them.
"Mix" is part of those conversations. We want to have a variety of stories on the Sports front page; variety of sports, variety of topics, variety of story type (a news story, a profile, a column, a fun story, etc.). Mix is often more important to us than reader interest. My opinion is that it's our job to give you both stories you except and want and stories you didn't know you wanted until you finished them. I love that about newspapers, the discoveries as you flip the pages.
Our Sunday cover this morning has a nice mix: the future, the past, the right now and the huh, didn't know that.
Last Sunday: the big news of the week, the analysis of a women's team (gender is among the most important pieces of "cover mix" conversations), the game(s) story and the fun twist on a relevant topic.
We don't always get this right, of course. Some days our mix might lead to our most-read story of the day being inside the section. As editor, I hope our readers can appreciate the mission, though: create a front page that is both important and interesting.
And this may surprise you: I like hearing from readers who think we missed on that morning's cover choices. That means you're watching closely and that you give a darn. Those are my favorite readers, the close-watchers and darn-givers.
Chris Carr, sports editor
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