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Grip and grins, and other crap

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Stitch, Oct 22, 2008.

  1. Stitch

    Stitch Active Member

    I guess my question is answered. Grip and grins satisfy egos of "large advertisers" and old people who have nothing better to do than read the paper one more time before they croak.
     
  2. fossywriter8

    fossywriter8 Well-Known Member

    Not "large advertisers" -- advertisers, all sizes.
    Not old people who have nothing better to do -- readers of all ages.
    Granted, my paper's probably not as big as yours, but readers want these pics. The readers are the business owners and their employees, the officers in the fraternal organizations and their members, the people and groups who receive the checks. They are the people next door and the ones down the road, blue collar and white collar.
     
  3. txsportsscribe

    txsportsscribe Active Member

    glad to see you value readers so much.
     
  4. pseudo

    pseudo Well-Known Member

    Spent several years with an area non-profit, and although I hated doing them, you betcha I still scheduled grip-n-grins to run in the local paper (the same small-town weekly I now write for). Good PR for both sides, and the paper wasn't exactly ditching original content to make room for the pix. Your results may vary.

    Oooh, I am so stealing that.
     
  5. MU_was_not_so_hard

    MU_was_not_so_hard Active Member

    A good buddy of mine told me one of the funniest stories along these lines I'd ever heard.

    His area seems to have a lot of kids who are having "signing parties" to go play college sports. In a lot of these cases, the kids weren't really recruited, but because of grades or whatever, they are getting preferred walk-on status.
    After parents, coaches, etc., let the paper know about 1000 times that said signing party is happening, the paper will send a photog out to get a pic of the event.
    In many cases, the athlete doesn't even have anything official to sign. So, in haste, someone will grab a piece of blank printer paper and have the athlete sign it.

    I absolutely lost my shit when he told me that story.
     
  6. Barsuk

    Barsuk Active Member

    That's when you snap the picture of him "signing," crop a mug out of it and move on with your life. :D
     
  7. Stitch

    Stitch Active Member

    I value most of the readers enough to understand that many newspapers don't report on real issues because we're all hanging around waiting for the latest check passing.
     
  8. Armchair_QB

    Armchair_QB Well-Known Member

    I've seen TV and print coverage of kids signing an LOI for a Division III school. Which isn't really a story.

    Well, other than the fact that there is no LOI for Division III schools.
     
  9. awriter

    awriter Active Member

    OK, I just never heard that term. Luckily, I never worked for a paper that ran those.
     
  10. 2muchcoffeeman

    2muchcoffeeman Well-Known Member

    Same is true of NAIA schools, although a couple of the NAIA conferences have rules requiring LOIs.
     
  11. jobu

    jobu Member

    At the first paper I worked at, one of the ad sales women brought me an ad for some new business in town and asked me go do a story on it. When I ignored her request, she started coming by my desk at least twice a week with subtle and not-so-subtle reminders about Joe's Wash-n-Pluck.

    I continued to blow her off, until one day, the managing editor told me I did have to write the story, because it was promised with the purchase of an ad in the paper. I was crestfallen.

    Now, I work for a hospital's fundraising arm, and though all the kowtowing to sponsors and donors makes me queasy, I have to remind myself of the greater good.
     
  12. Stitch

    Stitch Active Member

    Here's something, I know for a fact that the number of people who click on grip and grins on my paper's Web site is usually in the single digits, even after a week or so. So don't give me the line that people care about this stuff. There is usually a grip and grin on the front page of the site too.

    Who honestly opens the paper and thinks to themselves "I wonder whose getting a big check when I turn to A5 or B7?

    I can understand that newspapers had more of a license to put crap in when more people bought the paper, but with readers leaving in droves, doesn't it make sense to run something that would interest a broad segment of readers instead of just a few advertisers?
     
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