New Dispatch sports editor Damon Poeter has already handled
running a sports section before.
New Dispatch sports editor Damon Poeter has already handled running a sports section before.
In his four years on the sports desk at the Nation newspaper, Thailand’s English-language daily, Poeter gained some useful and some not-so-useful experience.
The not-so-useful?
“I know a lot more about cricket and rugby,” he quipped, “than I’m ever going to need in any newsroom in the United States.”
Don’t be fooled, though.
The 33-year-old Poeter brings plenty to Gilroy’s newsroom.
When the San Francisco native worked at the Bangkok paper from 1996-98 and then again in 2003, he was the paper’s unquestioned “expert in American sports” and jokingly admitted that when it came to Giants’ baseball, he “possibly” let his bias take precedent over readers’ interest. “I think Barry Bonds’ picture appeared in the paper as often as Anna Kournikova’s, which is saying something, though I’m not sure what.”
Working for a newspaper read across a country of 60 million people, Poeter, who earned a BA from UCLA, knew he had to try to satisfy everyone.
“We had to please so many people – the English, the Australians, the Thais, the Americans,” he said. “We definitely had to have broad coverage of many different sports and activities.”
Poeter said he plans to bring the same mission to Gilroy, where he moved with his wife and two young sons after being named deputy lifestyles editor in August.
“I want to build on what I think is a great product already,” he said of the Dispatch sports section. “We’re planning coverage of even more local sports and activities and more consistent coverage of specific special interests like golf, rec leagues, outdoor activities, etc.”
In addition to “livening up the design” of the section, Poeter, who graduated from St. Ignatius in San Francisco in 1989, said he’d also like to investigate issues “that are important to sports, but that could also help out the community” – such as Title IX, steroids and sports medicine.
In this endeavor, Poeter will be working hand-in-hand with the staff already in place at South Valley Newspapers, including Morgan Hill Times sports editor Jim Johnson and newly named Hollister Free Lance sports editor Josh Staloch.
“I’m happy to be working with what I believe is going to be a great team,” Poeter said.
