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News stealing sports for 1A

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by YankeessSuck, Mar 11, 2012.

  1. YankeessSuck

    YankeessSuck Member

    I do consider it stealing when I come in to start my shift and am told 'we are taking this for 1A'

    I agree with what all of you are saying. Had this been done two days ago I would have gone about my business and taken my design in another direction. But I had specific art that was coming to me and it was stolen from me at the last second.
     
  2. YankeessSuck

    YankeessSuck Member

    Didn't have anyone on staff who was able to shoot it so we relied on the school for a pic. We just had the one celebration shot and nothing else.
     
  3. Ace

    Ace Well-Known Member

    If
    If you are relying on the school for a celebration shot for a sports centerpiece, I don't think you can bitch too much about A1. You're already starting off way in the hole.
     
  4. Frank_Ridgeway

    Frank_Ridgeway Well-Known Member

    Hey, just because they fucked up Friday doesn't mean they should keep it fucked up on Sunday night. Ultimately they made a good decision to take it out front. The inconvenience to you and the impact on the sports section ought to be irrelevant to the people who decide A1, at least compared with the overall best interest of the newspaper -- which is having the best possible product for people to see on newsstands. Same deal if they had planned on taking a sports thing on A1 and then changed their minds and dumped it back to you. Extra work for you, but that's life. A nice editor would be apologetic to you, but the bottom line is the same: A1 is more important and they can't stick with a bad plan if there's a way to fix it.
     
  5. reformedhack

    reformedhack Well-Known Member

    Never minded when 1A took a great sports story, but it always bothered me when they put the story at the bottom of the page (where sports readers frequently overlooked it) and played 1C centerpiece-worthy art the size of a credit card.
     
  6. Ace

    Ace Well-Known Member

    This I agree with.
     
  7. HanSenSE

    HanSenSE Well-Known Member

    Me too. Had it happen just last weekend at Sectionals.
     
  8. awriter

    awriter Active Member

    Did they take the photo AND story for 1A or just the photo? If all they were running was a photo, couldn't they have taken a different one for 1A? Or couldn't you have just used a different photo?
     
  9. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    Presumably your photographer took more than one photo for the story.

    If he didn't, FIRE HIM.

    Look over the other photos he took and pick one that comes the closest to filling your photo frame.

    If you have no local options, dig up some feature-y AP photo on your team from sometime during the season.

    If it's cropped a bit funny or doesn't fit right, jam it in there however it fits, and tell the big bosses, "tough crap, you took the photo we had planned for the package."

    If they are unhappy how the front of sports looks, just say, "that's what happens when you grab our top photo three hours before deadline."

    And then, in a very icy-dripping voice, just say, "MAYYYYBE somebody on NEWS-side could have assigned one of your crack local reporters to head across the street to Stinky Joe's Sports Bar and gotten one of those ever-captivating 'local drunks on the bar stools react to big basketball victory' stories for Page 1A. Just MAYYYBE."
     
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