Can we avoid becoming part of the story here?

A couple of years ago we had a photog kick a ball that was still in play. No goal though.

 

As long as you know. I've had writers write what they saw in a game and were surprised to find that others disagreed with their interpretations and it made for very messy corrections.

Not saying you are wrong or anything, though.

 

The ref was knocked out by an errant soccer ball and all hell broke loose!

 

Good God! It's Bumfuck High's music!

 

No, you're right. I wouldn't write it as fact if I wasn't sure. I thought I saw the ball bounce off my photog, and she later said it did bounce off her leg and back into the field of play. Not much room for error there (I hope )

 

"Stop the music!!"

 

Cheaters!

 

shit dude, that incident would be my lede. Soccer's freaking boring enough, and I'd like to show all those dipshits out there that we put ourselves in the line of fire by covering their little brats' sporting events that mean very little in the grand scheme of things.

 

Fuck the blowout soccer gamer. I wanna read a story about how this all went down.

 

Well, if they played the game in a steel cage, they wouldn't have to worry about the ball going out of bounds.

 

Just to get the details straight in my mind, Bigpern, but did the ball bounce off your photog because it was traveling fast and she couldn't get out of the way, or was she being helpful and stopped the ball so the players could retrieve it? I ask because she should leave the ball alone and do her job, unless it was a matter of not being able to get out of the way. (Even soccer linesmen don't make an effort to stop or retrieve balls to avoid the appearance of helping one team over the other. And they're supposed to be watching the action on the field.)

But after confirming that the ball hit her, I'd mention the goal, probably along the lines of, "Everything went wrong for the East Overshoe soccer team last night. Even a photographer got an assist in the x-x blowout by West Soccer Power."

If the refs missed it that badly, they need to be called out on it. Next time, it might be a crucial goal.

 

Before you mention anything about the incident in a story, you need to call marketing and ask them whether you should refer to the photographer as the "Bumbletown Daily Blurb Action Cam" or the "Bumbletown Daily Blurb Eye On Sports Action Cam".