Dear dimwit on the phone

I was imprecise there I knew it when I hit the button on that. We leave something big out or - and this happens in a neighboring market - cut the Sprint Cup race finishers list off at No. 23 in the Monday paper. When you get a call on that sort of foolishness, there's no real argument.

 

Agreed. No way should you cut Sprint Cup results midway through.

 

Me: Podunk Times Sports, how may I help you?
Dimwit: I sent you in a photo of the Backwoodsville fourth-grade basketball team. Did you get it?
Me: Yeah (looks around) ... right here. And I was going to call you back because all I see here is the photo and the players' names.
Dimwit: Yes, that's what I sent.
Me: Well, what kind of accomplishment did they have? Did they win a tournament or go undefeated or something like that?
Dimwit: No, they only played three games. They only won one of them.
Me: I'll need something better than that to run this photo and based on what you're saying, I can't run it.
Dimwit: Well, we were hoping that seeing their picture in the paper would give them motivation for next year.
Me: <facepalm>

 

I'm a big racing fan in suburban Boston, which is nowhere close to NASCAR country. I just go on the web for my racing information or TV shows like NASCAR Raceday. I know that not everyone has the Internet, but in the current marketplace some of the blame has to go on the fan here. You like NASCAR but live in New England? Tough shit. We'll cover it hard the two weeks of the year it's in New Hampshire and you're on your own for the rest. The priorities change depending on the area, but there are always coverage priorities. Hit those hard and add in the peripherals when possible. If someone complains then oh well (not a douchey oh well but a "we got no space" oh well).

 

Totally agree on the priorities. I would not even consider running NASCAR agate in the Northeast, except if the race was nearby. But if I did run them, I would never cut them in half. Has to be all or nothing on some things.

 

Maybe around in or around Boston there's not much interest but trust me one of the counties my paper serves if we don't get those NASCAR results in we hear about it...We get more complaints about not getting a Saturday night NASCAR race in because it didn't end before deadline than a Red Sox-Yankees game that takes four hours to complete. More often than not, we will run the NASCAR results again for Monday's paper for a race that ended late Saturday night.

 

Agreed. Although I've trimmed golf scores quite often. A regular PGA Tour field is 156 players, around half that after the cut. Add in the Champions Tour and/or LPGA and that's a considerable amount of space. Car races are usually 20-45 drivers, depending on the circuit.

 

We cut the level of our AP service several months ago and complaints about the lack of NASCAR agate beat all other complaints by a mile.

 

Same thing at our place when we went to limited a few years back. That and NFL boxes. Th
thank goodness we went back.

It may take a bit of typing/massaging, but have you checked out NASCAR Media?

 

Haven't had to use it for anything other than pictures, but NASCAR Media is a godsend for that. Good, high-res images available not long after the race ends, and the site is easy to navigate. Anyone with limited AP access really needs to register for it.

 

Got a call complaining about not having the MLB standings in today's paper. The caller thought our daily should concentrate more on the MLB teams (the closest is about two hours away) than our local high school baseball, softball and track teams who all competed yesterday.

 

Happy to report NASCAR agate is back in our paper. Thanks.