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Show Editorial Policy Hurts Weekly Newspapers for a buck. Where is the most significant market for BYU sports? Obviously among people with the most disposable income. BYU's line of logic - treating weekly newspapers as nonentities -has at least one stinging implication. Since BYU feels that American Fork's newspaper isn't a real paper, does that mean BYU also thinks that their own fullback, Bruce Hansen of American Fork, and his brother Brian aren't real football players? In BYU's defense it must be noted that there is a limited amount of space in the press box at Cougar Stadium, and there are many news , organizations that desire to cover the BYU football team. The coverage, ( both local and national, has increased during the last several years as the Cougars have become a regular member of Top 20 polls. . ' - But the-snobbish proclivities of the U BYU Sports Information Department have led to an odd situation. Stylish news organizations are now permitted per-mitted more than one seat in the press box in addition to photographers, television camera crews, roving reporters on the sidelines and the occasional helicopter - while at the same time the weekly newspapers are left out in the cold (what did we ever do to them?). According to Mr. Schultess, not even a photo pass could be spared, even though there is nearly 1,000 feet of vacant sideline space every Saturday - a fifth of a mile. At first glance it appears that BYU . is discriminating against the weekly newspapers, but in the final analysis the discrimination is really aimed at the readers of the community newspapers. BYU's decision to withhold press tickets is tantamount to telling 25,000 readers they are insignificant. Of course that figure increases if the other weekly newspapers in Utah County are included. in-cluded. t-We're not bitter, just a - little confused. con-fused. We can't figure out why weekly newspapers are summarily snubbed, since, after all, BYU only plays football once a week. By CARL HAUPT Sports Editor The editor hung up his telephone last week and looked at me in disbelief. "We're not a real newspaper after all," he said. "I have suspected it for some time but now J's official." Then the story began to unfold. He had just called Dave Schultess at the BYU Sports Information Department to request press tickets for the upcoming up-coming BYU-UNLV football game. Bis is something a real newspaper might do -you see, it's a fair trade for allthat free publicity. I We wanted to spotlight some of the players from north Utah County, but He didn't get the chance. Mr. Schultess said BYU has a policy of issuing press credentials only to daily wspapers. No weekly papers , &wed, he said. No room in the press fa. No room on the sidelines He -laid. "' It's really a rather frustrating situation. Last time I checked, Associated Press got two press tickets; United Press International lot two; the Deseret News and the Salt Lake Tribune got one each; the Provo DaUy Herald was allowed three tickets. In addition, all these papers were allowed passes for sideline photographers. Even now BYU's student newspaper, The Daily Universe, has no trouble getting two press-box tickets and several sideline photo passes. The Daily Universe situation brings the matter into focus - not to raise the question of whether it is a "real" newspaper but simply because it's an interesting case in point. They print approximately 18,000 newspapers each day - a substantial number indeed. And their audience, the ordinary or-dinary BYU student, certainly deserves to read about the athletic exploits of the school's highly successful suc-cessful football team. Compare that to the three weekly' newspapers of north Utah County -the American Fork Citizen, Lehi Free Press and Pleasant Grove Review -all of which we produce from one office. Although we print just 9,000 newspapers each week, studies have shown that the average weekly newspaper, nationally commands a readership of approximately 2.8 readers. That gives us a total readership of more than 25,000. And judging from the traffic jam on the Orem 12th South exit at game time Saturdays, our readers are also intently in-tently interested in BYU football. But there's a big difference between bet-ween the north Utah County fan and the average BYU student: Our people pay the full gate price ($8 or so at a whack) while students are admitted |