Fluff brings to mind bunny rabbits, marshmallow creme and clouds. Not hard news stories, sports coverage and newspapers.

But in a letter to the editor published Tuesday, sophomore Carol Alles referred to the content on the front page of The Red & Black Monday as “fluff” that was “disappointing.”

RACHEL G. BOWERS

Disappointing is Ms. Alles’ failure to notice the below-the-fold headline that read “Bulldogs defense leads to win over top-20 team.” The story ran complete with a candid photo from the game on a front page Ms. Alles claimed was filled with “fluff,” and not the marshmallow creme kind.

Referring to The Red & Black’s front page content as “fluff” is a statement lacking knowledge or capacity of the decisions I, as sports editor, and the other editors are forced to make in the face of the evolving 24-hour news cycle.

This phenomenon makes every newspaper from The Red & Black to The New York Times excruciatingly aware of the changes happening in media.

The constant push for the most up-to-date print content, Web content and multimedia content has shoved publications into a corner, forcing news media to quickly adapt to demand and give content-hungry consumers what they ask for.

Since The Red & Black prints five days a week, that leaves a 48-hour weekend void our Web site must fill in the absence of the print edition.

The Red & Black’s sportswriters do more than their part to contribute to our Web site during the print edition’s hiatus each weekend by submitting a gamer — a recap of a team’s game, meet or match results — that is posted on the paper’s Web site immediately following the contest.

That writer then turns around and crafts another story that is forward-looking and geared more for the print version that is to run in Monday’s paper.

When the editors reconvene Sunday afternoons — yes, even Super Bowl Sunday — and begin production Sunday evening, we are faced with choices about what news and sports coverage will be relevant come Monday morning. That’s when we decide what content to run on the front page, what is most pertinent and what stories have not fossilized over the weekend.

And in the 24-hour news cycle we all live in, a game, meet or match that happened Friday night is an archaic — almost extinct — dinosaur at the start of the school week.

Neither USA Today nor The Athens Banner-Herald ran extensive coverage of Super Bowl XLIV across today’s front pages — three days after the contest. Why? Because the news is old, decrepit and ready to join the rest of Sunday’s news at the nursing home down the street.

We do not “prepare” stories for the convenience of our social lives in order to scurry out of the office with a mediocre paper thrown together. We brainstorm and execute stories intended to inform and analyze issues for readers, such as you, Ms. Alles.

And when every other sports team at Georgia has the coverage demand, national publicity and earning power like that of football, then The Red & Black would feed the increased demand for coverage.

In that case, we would douse Monday front pages with that two- or three-day-old sports coverage with huge color photos, meticulous, exhaustive coverage and “triumphant” stories.

It becomes a matter of necessity to make what we feel are the best decisions possible when choosing what stories run on the front page and what stories we “shun” to the back pages.

As journalists, we have to persevere and continue making the right decisions about not only front page content, but also what appears throughout the paper.

And trust me, nothing about that is fluffy.

— Rachel G. Bowers is the sports editor for The Red & Black