Do Parents Even Read The Paper?

Those were always my favorite

ME: "I'm very disappointed to hear you haven't written any stories Johnny Cockblocker. You know, the linebacker for State College's D-I football team!"

I found ten clips from that calendar year where Johnny is featured, put them in a file folder and leave on the ME's desk. Didn't hear a word back.

 

Nothing is more depressing than when your direct superiors couldn't give a shit what you're doing, to say nothing of the public at large.

 

What's worse is when you have a state event that only has one kid from each of four or five schools, and the parents cannot fathom why you aren't sending a reporter 200 miles just to watch the four kids lose in the second round or finish 18th out of 20.

 

They're driving 200 miles to see their kids be also-rans, so they expect you to be there too.

I'd occasionally hear this sort of thing from certain coaches and parents in sports where this thing applies (such as track, where you very well may have just one kid in the whole thing competing. They argue that it's not fair that we'd do it for the football or baseball team, for example.

When you've got a team sport you've always got multiple local interests involved. Sure, Parent A and the family may only be concerned about reading his kid's name in the paper, but when you've got a dozen or more people this translates into a significant amount of interest in the aggregate, at least as far as the local small-town rag is concerned. Of course, most of these people lose interest after the kids graduate, but then you've got a new set of kids and their parents and they want to be *made famous*

FWIW, I thought I was the shit when I was 10 or 11 and I had my name in the paper for a Little League game. Didn't matter that they put two E's in my last name, like it's even happened on my bylines from time to time.

"Ma'am?" *squawk squawk squawk* "Yes, in fact, I do know what it's like to have my name misspelled in print, and it's not really all that traumatic of an experience. I'll take note of it. Thank you for your interest."

 

It's even better when the people who make the page dummies don't read the paper.
You know when they put a 6x10 add on my jump page jettisoning my brief column. The thing is there every day in the same spot.

Or when they need a color spot for a large add on the inside color. You know, the one that's going right where Monday's high school feature goes EVERY week.

It's always fun when these people are paying attention.

 

Your column and high school features don't make the paper money. [/publishers&salesmanagers]

 

Track mom called this week to ask we STAFF her daughter signing with an NAIA school. (By comparison, we've had 10 football players within 10 miles of our office sign with BCS schools in the last year, and we have at least half that many girls track/field athletes who are going D1.)
Um, no, but we'll be happy to run the announcement. Even had a photog who was at the conference meet that night get a mug shot.
"You know, we never get any coverage. It always seems to go to the football team."
Yes, ma'am, but our coverage is kind of reader driven. When you get 7,000 people at a track meet you make sure to let me know.

 

I've seldom if ever understood why a ceremonial signing of a piece of paper warranted being staffed in the first place. I've seen plenty of kids sign LOI's for schools for which they never suited up.

 

word.

the last place i was at attempted to cover about 75 high schools.

before i arrived, we had one prep guy who spent a lot of his time attending every stinking signing in our coverage area.

in the time i was there, i think i sent him to something like two signings. funny thing is, i think the guy still hates me for that fact.

 

We all have horror stories of the days when there are a million ads, and we have a ton of news to get in, only to have no ads on days when nothing is going on.

We had an advertiser who wanted his ad on the page that we were going to run auto racing news (and we had a very small section that day). We had a lot of local things going on, so the auto racing ran in our briefs. Advertiser was quite upset. We told our reps that advertisers don't dictate where news is placed. They learned their lesson (and our higher-ups backed us up).

 

Ah, good ol' signing stories. I did more than my fair share. It was a great way to surpass the ME's 10-byline-per=week quota.

 

As far as signing stories are concerned, unless it's D-I, there should be nothing more than a brief written from a press release. Especially with NAIA schools.