Three writers, one good effort

Being a college beat writer is not easy. You have to protect the subjects or risk losing access. There are only so many human interest stories to play up. And in BC’s case there is rarely breaking news. The two BC beat writers Mike Vega and Mike Shalin (I guess he kissed and made up with the Herald) do an okay job. At times they knock stuff out of the park. Other times it feels like they mail it in.

Maybe they are adjusting to the new surrounds, but they both wrote straight-forward “mail it in” stuff from their first ACC Football Kickoff. Both writers focused on Will Blackmon, who has been written about to death this summer. No new info (Will adjusting, used both ways, he’s excited, etc.). Normally no one would notice these “C” efforts and even fewer would care, but now fans can read any writer online. “C” efforts look even worse, when a writer from another part of the country takes a fresh look at BC star Mathias Kiwanuka. Kudos to the writer, Mike Harris. Instead of focusing on Kiwi’s Ugandan background (old news), he broke the story about Kiwi’s hair (new news) and provided a deeper explanation of why Kiwi came back for his senior year (Coach Willis). I read a ton of BC stuff and the last place I expect to learn about our players is from newspaper writers who don't cover BC.