Dallas Stars coverage is lacking and it’s very concerning to be honest

In the world around us, there are days when we receive good news and bad news. Today is one of those days when we received some bad news as Stars fans. I’ll get to that bad news in the next paragraph. The Dallas Stars have been covered by some of the best local print journalists in the last couple of decades. Mike Heika, Matthew DeFranks, and Saad Yousuf are some of the beat reporters the Stars have bad in the decade. Now Yousuf is somewhat leaving the beat.

For those who didn’t hear this morning, Saad Yousuf was assigned to help cover Dallas Cowboys coverage for the Athletic this upcoming season. He is still going to cover the Dallas Stars but not as often as he has for the time he’s been at the Athletic covering the Stars. With the move, there are really only three true outlets that are covering the Stars full-time: Dallas Morning News, Defending Big D, and yours truly Blackout Dallas. It’s pretty sad, to say the least.

For those who don’t know I went to Abilene Christian to get my Convergence Journalism degree. I focused more on the writing side of stuff and joined the student newspaper, the Optimist. During my time writing for the sports section, I was assigned as the Men’s and Women’s Tennis Beat Reporter. That means my primary responsibility was to cover all the tennis action during the Fall.

My boss Max Preston, who was the Sports Director for the paper at the time, also allowed me to go to the weekly football and basketball press conference. He had a class that was required for graduation during the conference every week and I had no class during that time.

I also got to get that first-hand experience to be a reporter at a press conference to ask questions to the coaches. That’s a little background on my experience as a college sports reporter. Now back to the topic at hand.

I know that the print industry is changing constantly every year. More and more people are heading online to get their favorite teams’ sports coverage. The Athletic had one of the coolest models which is beat reporting. For those who don’t know what beat reporting is, it means you’re assigned to cover a single team for however long the paper wants you to. Now it seems they are moving away from that model somewhat with their recent moves.

The press box is going to look pretty bare this upcoming season for local print media at the Dallas Stars games this season. I know that Defending Big D, D Magazine, and the Dallas Morning News will be there but Yousuf might be in and out due to Cowboys coverage. What I’m trying to get at is that it’s pretty sad that there aren’t many local print media companies covering the Stars.

The Stars had one of their best seasons in recent years this past season and it’s pretty sad that the local media won’t even bat an eye to cover them. The Stars are going in the right direction and next year they could be competing for a Stanley Cup Title once again. It will be sad if the Stars do end up making the Stanley Cup Finals and there are barely local print publications there to cover them.

I can tell you one thing though, here at Blackout Dallas we will continue to cover the Dallas Stars until we are told not to. My staff of contributors and I will continue to provide awesome insight and analysis on the Dallas Stars during the regular season and the off-season. We can’t wait to bring you more Dallas Stars coverage this season as they begin their revenge tour in the Western Conference. Hopefully, more local print media will jump on the bandwagon and cover the Stars as well.