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Dear dimwit on the phone

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Starman, Jan 21, 2010.

  1. HejiraHenry

    HejiraHenry Well-Known Member

    And then you have a night like tonight (a Sunday) when nobody called. No late game summaries from Saturday (or, hell, Friday), no calls looking for scores or bitching about something that was (or wasn't) in Sunday's paper, not even a call from "Mister Tennis," who's been calling for at least 10 years for the area college tennis score.

    Kinda odd.
     
  2. Kolchak

    Kolchak Active Member

    One of our publishers had a son playing lacrosse, so guess what non-sanctioned sport we suddenly took an interest in for that season?

    Wow, I don't think we've ever had a caller asking for college tennis scores. Does he want just the final score or does he ask for individual matches too?

    We used to have a guy who would call asking for NHRA results. Before your post, I didn't think you could go lower than that when it comes to the "repeat offenders."
     
  3. Keystone

    Keystone Member

    Actually, in my neck of the woods, there's quite a bit of interest in lacrosse and the NHRA. It depends what part of the country you're in.

    Anyway, during my SE days, my one constant complainer was a geezer who would yell into my voicemail if we didn't run full Senior PGA results.
     
  4. Mark2010

    Mark2010 Active Member

    Maybe your phone system is broken.

    One place I worked, all the outside lines on weekends got routed to my extension, so I'd get calls from every whack job in the county wanting to rant about anything under the sun. Sundays were usually pretty slow and I'd finish our four-page section early, so some nights it could be quite entertaining. Other than the two news desk editors, I had no one else to talk to.
     
  5. spikechiquet

    spikechiquet Well-Known Member

    Did you call Mister Tennis to make sure he is alive? Check the obits.
     
  6. UPChip

    UPChip Well-Known Member

    The MAC hasn't been good since Chris Kaman. Probably not even during Chris Kaman.
     
  7. UPChip

    UPChip Well-Known Member

    Regarding agate:

    My publisher once told me (I wish I was kidding) to make sure not to skimp on golf agate from the weekends because golf fans tend to have money. This after I got a complaint from a reader in which he asked when I was going to just start fellating Tiger Woods directly instead of on the page (before the incident).

    I'm fortunate - the complaints about agate that hit my phone are limited and the most frequent one is that it's illegibly small - well duh, it's agate. I normally run full boxes for state teams and get away with glances and, in the case of MLB, linescores.

    Before reading, recognize that we have three pages so space and time are limiting factors.

    Anyhow, I almost always cut Sprint Cup agate to top 20 (plus Chasers). Once you get past 20th, you're talking about start-and-parkers, folks who broke, wrecked or Danica. If I had more space and time (also, I'm an eight-hour drive from the nearest Sprint Cup track), maybe I'd concern myself with 33rd, but otherwise.

    I would pay for the elimination of their contrived "race rating" as well as FedEx Cup-free golf agate. Not only is it the worst thing to happen to my tabs since Gonzalez Fernandez-Castano, it's not exactly relevant how many FedEx Cup points one gets for finishing T19 at Colonial.
     
  8. HanSenSE

    HanSenSE Well-Known Member

    Then there was the last time Mark Calcavecchia won in a playoff. Ever wanted to laugh, scream and cry all at once?
     
  9. spikechiquet

    spikechiquet Well-Known Member

    Yup, my first paper did that 15 years ago. I have pitched the idea here and was told it's a no-go. They don't want to dedicate the time to it. Instead, we just run them whenever we have the room/time to type up whatever it is.
     
  10. Batman

    Batman Well-Known Member

    As a reader, jumping from 20th, to 25th, to 31st, to 38th might be confusing. I think you need to run just the top 20, all of it, or none of it. Personally, I lean toward all of it, especially this time of year. A popular driver -- say, Tony Stewart, who has been in the teens in the points for much of this season -- could have been one of the ones who wrecked, but people still want to know where he finished.
    Agree that the race rating is silly, though. So is the money, which makes no damn sense. I know a lot of it's based on sponsor bonuses, but it's stupid that Jimmie Johnson can make $200,000 for wrecking 10 laps in and finishing 30th, and Bobby Labonte can make $95,000 for finishing fifth. The money also pushes about 28 of 43 lines in the race results over by five characters, thus forcing me to spend two minutes picking through it to take all of the amounts off.
    Golf money isn't as bad because of find and replace (ties rule!), but it's still annoying. Worse than the FedEx Cup points.
     
  11. KYSportsWriter

    KYSportsWriter Well-Known Member

    Dear Wrestling Dad,
    Thanks for posting on Facebook that your son has won one of our All-Area awards -- before that info was supposed to appear in our paper.

    Dear Wrestling Coach,
    Thanks for letting dear old Dad know so he could post it on Facebook.

    Long story short, I told the kid's coach he had won our Sophomore of the Year award, but told him not to tell anyone about it just yet. I guess that whole "don't tell anyone" didn't sink in.

    Am I wrong in being upset about this?
     
  12. DeskMonkey1

    DeskMonkey1 Active Member

    Nope, but I hope you aren't shocked
     
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