Compliments

Try to give them the benefit of the doubt -- they saw you put out a quality product and gave you credit for it. They'll still complain the next time they don't like something. Nature of the beast when you cover preps.

On another note, where the hell did you guys find enough advertising for a 48-page special on one softball team? Even at magazine size, that's amazing. At my place, they're not sure they can sell enough ads for us to do what would be a tiny football preview section.

 

Our publisher (a former sports guy) thought of the idea and put feelers out to see what kind of reaction we could get from businesses. Businesses, the school and family members came out of the woodwork to buy ads in it. I don't even think it was too hard of a sell for our ad team. We just rarely have a state champion in any of the major team sports from our 10-team coverage area so it was kind of a big deal. In fact, it was our first state champion since a 2001 volleyball team.

Magazine turned out really well, so the girls and their families have a keepsake and we turned a profit. Win-win.

 

A 48-page section on a softball team that won a state championship? Holy crap.

 

Looking for apartments after I landed my first job, I mentioned that I'd be working for the paper, the Morning Press. "Oh, the Morning Mess?" the 80-year-old landlord laughed.

 

Take it for what it is.

It wasn't until I left the local paper as a full-timer that I became barraged by compliments by people I'd see in the community. Maybe it was their backhanded way of complaiining about the new guys, but I took most of them as genuine.