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Bad preps correction

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Perry White, Aug 28, 2006.

  1. EStreetJoe

    EStreetJoe Well-Known Member

    In defense of the writers and in a swipe at my profession - the copy editors should have caught those mistakes and alerted the reporters that those people are dead.
     
  2. RedCanuck

    RedCanuck Active Member

    I could see that happening from a newspaper that isn't necessarily in the school's town. They probably only had so much time to talk to the coach, and the rest they'd fill in with rosters and stats. The player would have been eligible and he was good last year. It might have even been tough in this instance for the guy's copy editor to get the correct info.
     
  3. Idaho

    Idaho Active Member

    That's not a copy editor's fault. It's the reporter's fault for not using names given him directly by the coach in an interview or on a preseason questionaire.

    One phone call is all it takes per school. Ask the coach who he's counting on this season and how to spell the names. If the coach doesn't give you those names directly, you can't rely on last year's roster. It's simply not safe to make that asumption.
     
  4. JayFarrar

    JayFarrar Well-Known Member

    And it isn't reliable to rely on the coach.
    I once had a coach send me information and one of the players he listed was dead. He was a new coach and the kid had been all-state the year before and the coach put him down as a player he was hoping would have a big season.
    It was a small school and it wasn't in the coverage area. Just in the same district as other schools that were.
    Never heard a peep or complaint.
    You also have coaches call younger brothers their older brothers name all the time, or their dad's name.
     
  5. Running Bear

    Running Bear Member

    I once had a coach tell me at the all-league meeting he'd been spelling a kid's name wrong all year.

    But back to topic, Idaho's right. As a reporter, that's just inexcusable laziness.
     
  6. Buck Hill

    Buck Hill New Member

    Awesome, awesome post. Nine words, zero clues, great movie reference.

    By the way, a similar situation happened at a paper I know of. Girl died in a car crash. Someone didn't turn in a "players to watch" list for the volleyball preview the next year, so someone pulled names off the all-area team from the previous year. Uh-oh.
     
  7. The players to watch reference in the last post reminds me of a comedy skit where some guy does the voice of Harry Carey calling the first ever baseball game between the Bethlahem Braves and the Jerusalem Giants.

    (Some guy) steps up to the plate and wow, he's hit by the pitch! He's down, he's hurt, ladies and gentlemen, he's dead . . . BUT WAIT A MINUTE! Just another mirical by the lord of lords and King of Kings.
     
  8. ronalong

    ronalong Guest

    A similar thing happened just weeks ago at the state's largest newspaper. They did a mid-week preview of a couple of big rivalry games around the metro area. In one story the a running back from the visiting school's team was mentioned as one of the players who could make a difference in the game. Only one small problem, that running back graduated last May. The article was written by a intern. Two weeks after the correction came out the intern is still there. I thought he was gone. Bet we won't do that again.
     
  9. Clever username

    Clever username Active Member

    You trying to say Jesus Christ can't hit a curveball?
     
  10. Chi City 81

    Chi City 81 Guest

    All right, Harris, let's not start a Holy War here.
     
  11. TwoGloves

    TwoGloves Well-Known Member

    We had a guy write once that a baseball player would be out with a season-ending injury. I'm guessing the coach said they had lost the kid and our brain surgeron assumed it was an injury. Turns out the kid died in a car accident over the winter. He wrote a correction saying the kid wasn't injured but was in fact dead. The SE said he wouldn't run it or we'd look like bigger idiots. And the writer never could figure out what the big deal about it was.
     
  12. sartrean

    sartrean Member

    I've made countless mistakes over the past 15 years of this b.s. None that bad.

    How did I make all the mistakes? So many people have asked me about mistakes, and I've always responded that, generally speaking, covering prep sports for either a big city daily or a twice weekly or weekly newspaper typically involves anywhere from 10 to 20 football teams (as many as 100 at a big city daily), softball teams, twice that soccer and basketball teams, and the oddball sports such as rifle, swimming, volleyball, etc. Hey man, kids names all start to run together. Coaches names start to run together, especially when maybe 10 or more in your coverage area have common last names like Smith, Thompson, Davis, Henderson, Brooks, etc. and they all only change jobs every two to three years, oftentimes going to a school across town or in the next county.

    And, if coaches would, say over at least the past five years, learn how the fuck to use email and check it at least once a day, many of these mistakes would simply not happen. And the phone calls? Yeah, call a coach of pretty much any sport, and you might get a call back, might not. Usually it's the latter. If he/she does return calls, it's oftentimes 10 days after the fact.

    And with email, one coach I met prior to the season. He was new at Podunk High. I talked with him for 30 minutes when I first met the guy and he gave me his cell, home numbers, office line, and two email addresses. "oh yeah, I use and check email all the time."

    A week later I emailed him one simple question about his career, to confirm one little fact. He responded to my question six months later, and on the email put something like "don't know if you're still wondering about this, but yeah I was at Hometown High as an assistant for eight years, between 1992 and 2000...."
     
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