| Best of Cox Index |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Sports
Staff
No athlete in South Florida commands more respect or attention than Alonzo Mourning, the star center for the Miami Heat basketball team. Because of his extraordinary skills on the court and his charity work off it, Mourning has become a must-read in the Palm Beach Post's market. The news that a mysterious illness could threaten his season and career was one of the year's biggest sports stories. Before the team's official announcement on Oct. 16, 2000, one of Mourning's closest family members had told the Post that Mourning had a serious kidney disease that might require a transplant. After the Heat and his doctors finally confirmed what the Post had reported, its goal was to tell two stories compellingly. The first was the clinical one about Mourning's disease, and the second was the emotional one about the crisis confronting the player, his family and the Heat's coaches and teammates.
Five reporters and two columnists, along with Post photographers and illustrators, responded with the following: • A news story on the team's announcement that ran on page one. • A medical story and informational graphic that put the disease in context and discussed the chances of a kidney transplant. • Two columns that led the Sports front and reported what Mourning and Miami Heat Coach Pat Riley were thinking. • A story exploring the team's chances of finding a center to replace Mourning. The Oct. 17 package in the Post educated readers with easy-to-digest facts about a rare disease, and invited them to connect emotionally with a man confronting frightening possibilities.
2001 ©
Cox Newspapers
Cox stories and columns are distributed among the 17 daily Cox papers as well as to 650 worldwide subscribing newspapers of the New York Times News Service. This material shall not be published or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium. Contact Us
|
|
|
