1. Welcome to SportsJournalists.com, a friendly forum for discussing all things sports and journalism.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register for a free account to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Access to private conversations with other members.
    • Fewer ads.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

F****** blogs

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Gator, Oct 18, 2016.

  1. BurnsWhenIPee

    BurnsWhenIPee Well-Known Member

    Exactly this. Are there any things that local club president and area tourism guy lean on the paper to get the word out about? Things that don't really move the needle for you, but they depend on for a form of free advertising?

    If so, that information train is off the tracks. Tell them to get fucked and go ring up blogger guy in the future.
     
  2. Rhody31

    Rhody31 Well-Known Member

    Just a warning: tread carefully, especially if potential advertising dollars are at stake. I learned the hard way.
    New Year 2013 a football player tweeted the local U was playing Penn State. This was before everyone had Twitter and, as I was the lone reporter who covered the team on Twitter, I started looking for other players' accounts, found them and a couple had tweeted the same thing. I called the school, no one got back to me. I called Penn State. Got someone on the phone who denied it was happening, get a call from my school's AD saying they wished I didn't call PSU and my snooping was putting the game in jeopardy. Wouldn't confirm anything on the record, asked me to hold off on the story. Told him I couldn't write about the game being played because I had no official confirmation - did talk to the head coach who basically said he wasn't sure how those things worked but if it happened it would be good for the program - but I was going forward with a story on the players' tweets.
    Write the story, clear it with my ME, publish it in our weekly and put it up on the site. Fire off a tweet with a link. I used to work in PA, a former co-worker RTs it, that gets picked up by some Penn State writers and the next day I get a call from the AD telling me I cost the school $500,000. SID called me the next day to berate me for the same thing.
    Two weeks later, fired. A few months later I heard from a TV guy that the school told my bosses I couldn't cover games anymore or they'd pull advertising dollars and the paper made a decision.

    So while I'd say call the Big Event, see if you can confirm thru them, I will warn you - make sure the paper's bottom line won't take a hit if you dig to break it the right way because if ad dollars are at stake, bosses won't have a hard decision to make.
     
  3. dirtybird

    dirtybird Well-Known Member

    What a clownish situation on their part. Here's a secret Mr. AD, if you don't want something like that out, make sure kids aren't putting it out on the web. Fucksticks.
     
  4. justgladtobehere

    justgladtobehere Well-Known Member

    Why are these pieces of news getting out problematic?
     
  5. Elliotte Friedman

    Elliotte Friedman Moderator Staff Member

    Rhody,

    Something really stinks about that story. Someone is not being honest with you.
     
    YankeeFan likes this.
  6. Rhody31

    Rhody31 Well-Known Member

    There is a lot of background not there involving management and me - mainly involving their disappointment with me not producing the way I had after they cut OT and I told them I wasn't working for free anymore - but this event was the straw that broke the camel's back. Wasn't trying to threadjack, just a warning that if he digs a little too deep and it costs the paper ad dollars, it could be bad news.
     
  7. JohnHammond

    JohnHammond Well-Known Member

    Alright, but not everyone gets in a fight with management about everything. It wasn't the story pissing off advertisers that got you fired; it was you.
     
  8. Doc Holliday

    Doc Holliday Well-Known Member

    I got fired once when I was in high school from being a stock boy at a grocery store for telling my boss I was going to kick his ass. It happens.
     
    cjericho likes this.
  9. dixiehack

    dixiehack Well-Known Member

    So did you?
     
  10. Doc Holliday

    Doc Holliday Well-Known Member

    Actually I didn't. He ran running to the store manager to report me. He wanted to me to climb a stack of pallets about 30 feet up and risk breaking my neck to get some 5-pound bags of flour down to stock the shelves because he was too fucking stupid to have charged up the forklift the night before. I told him to get his ass up there himself since he fucked up and forgot to charge the forklift. He told me I was going up there and I said I'd kick his ass before he would make me do it. He ran to the manager and I was fired within a few minutes. Good times. Got a better job that paid more with way better benefits (even for part-timers) two months later working for Wal-Mart.
     
  11. Gator

    Gator Well-Known Member

    Small update here: Turns out, waiting was the best thing I could have done. The official announcement was made on Tuesday, and Club President and Guy From Governing Body gave me the inside track to put a story in the paper the day before. And during the official announcement, there was a lightly veiled shot at the blogger to went with unnamed "multiple sources." Blogger, as expected, touted his report from "six months ago," though Club President said nothing had been decided at that point during the press conference. Also, blogger was not invited.

    Maybe patience, and doing things the right way, can be a virtue.
     
  12. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    The blogger was right, though.
     
Draft saved Draft deleted

Share This Page