Did you know the USA TODAY Network has 17 news sites in Florida?
If you knew that, do you know where they are?
After Gannett and Gatehouse merged in 2019, it created the largest newspaper company in the country with some 260 papers.
The Florida Sports Network
In Florida, six Gannett sites and 11 Gatehouse sites combined to give us a coverage area unmatched by any other entity in the state.
So where are they? I’ll start in the Northeast and work our way around the peninsula.
They are: Jacksonville, St. Augustine, Daytona Beach, Brevard (aka Florida’s Space Coast), TCPalm (aka the Treasure Coast), Palm Beach, Naples, Fort Myers, Sarasota, Lakeland, Leesburg, Ocala, Gainesville, Tallahassee, Panama City, Fort Walton Beach and Pensacola. We also have non-daily products sprinkled throughout, too.
That’s a lot of territory.
What do we cover?
Here are some of the marquee beats we cover: in the NFL, the Jaguars and Dolphins. We aggregate content on the Buccaneers from our USA TODAY parent.
College-wise, we have the Gators, Seminoles and Hurricanes covered.
We also have top-notch NASCAR, golf and fishing coverage, among other things.
And then, of course, there are prep sports.
We provide prep sports coverage unlike any other media outlet in the state. During the past several years we’ve used data and trends from our coverage to understand what people are reading, what they aren’t, and what they would like to see.
This year you’ll see that more than any other.
Our digital products give fans a chance to follow along with live scoreboards, photo galleries and instant results via social media, among other offerings.
We’ve recently hired more than a half dozen high school reporters around the state to bolster our coverage, along with a dedicated statewide recruiting reporter.
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Oh yeah. And then there’s this podcast. If you want a Florida-centric discussion where inside experts give you all the information rather than uninformed opinions, then this is the place for you.
Subscribers, thank you!
We want our subscribers to feel like we’re giving them everything we can to keep them informed. And yes, there is subscriber-specific content, so you can either run out of free views, or you can join our well-informed subscriber base and be in the know on what is going on in your community.
There’s so much you need to know and I could never pack it all into this column.
So join me on the latest “The *State* of Florida Sports Podcast,” as I interview our state sports editor, Nick Pugliese, as well as my counterpart Ed Reed. Ed and I both are deputy sports editors for the state.
Along with his duties as state sports editor, which he took on last September, Nick has been the Sports Editor at the Palm Beach Post for three years.
Ed is the Sports Editor overseeing both the Naples and Fort Myers newspapers. He started with Fort Myers in 1999.
As for me, I oversee two newspaper properties as well, FLORIDA TODAY based in Melbourne, and the Treasure Coast Newspapers, collectively known as TCPalm, which covers Indian River, St. Lucie and Martin Counties.
I started my journey with Gannett as a sports copy editor at FLORIDA TODAY in 2002.
Join us if you’re interested in hearing about how the journalism world has changed and how we intend to give you so much more than we could if the printed newspaper was our only product.
As I say each week, give the podcast a try. It’s as easy as hitting the play button.
If you like it, you can check out previous shows, which feature several former professional athletes and coaches, as well as our stable of journalists who cover beats and write columns.
Walters can be reached at twalters@gannett.com
