Daily American sports coverage to feature more athletes and teams

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Readers will notice important and significant changes to the Daily American and dailyamerican.com involving how scholastic sports is covered in Somerset County and across our area.

For the past two years, my main focus has been laying out pages five days a week and taking sports calls in the evenings.

I have enjoyed creating page designs to highlight local athletes, coaches and teams. However, one thing I have greatly missed is covering games and writing compelling stories. Beyond my weekly column, I have not covered many sporting events since becoming sports editor — a title I cherish.

Brad Rosemas has diligently handled the bulk of the county sports coverage, along with a group of skilled correspondents and photographers.

Now, I will have the opportunity to join my co-worker and our correspondents in expanding our local sports coverage.

As managing editor Bruce Siwy said last week, The Daily American is integrating its workflow with a team of talented paginators off-site. Therefore, myself, along with other staff writers, not just in sports, will have the opportunity to tell more in-depth stories without the task of putting out the daily pages as well.

Changes: Column: Improved page design, website coming soon

The goal in sports is to showcase locals making an impact in their given crafts. Traditional game stories will not be seen as much, with the exception of playoff coverage. We experimented with this style beginning in the fall, and it worked well.

With our move to a 4 p.m. daily deadline for content that appears in the following day’s print edition, the previous night’s sports scores will not be seen the next day in the newspaper. Readers will see the print change take place beginning in Wednesday’s edition.

However, scores and stories will be accessible through the improved dailyamerican.com website that night or early next morning. It is a much more digital-friendly experience for visitors to the website.

These changes are possible through the Daily American’s association with the USA Today Network and Gannett family of newspapers.

We remain committed to quality journalism throughout all of these changes. Scholastic sports coverage is a mainstay at the Daily American, and always will be. We encourage readers to give our online coverage a look. We value our loyal subscribers and will continue to provide a successful product to our readers.

Adam Ripple is the Daily American sports editor and columnist. He can be reached at aripple@dailyamerican.com. Follow him on Twitter at ARipple_DAsport.