How did your paper play the Little League World Series championship game

Used to get that quite a bit at a former shop where Little League was in direct competition with Dixie Youth. The local LL was much better organized, and got the better coverage.

 

Now, here's a steel-cage match waiting to happen ...

 

I abso-freakin-lutely would have loved to play. In fact, when I was 12, I used to watch it and dream about one day playing on an infield with grass inside the baselines.

However, when I was 12, I also would have loved to eat nothing but pizza and ice cream and play video games instead of going to school.

I don't think it's such a big deal that I'm incensed by the coverage. I just think it's probably too much for 12-year-olds. I think too much positive publicity at that age can cause problems (not always), and I certainly think that shining a spotlight on the kid who blows a game, with an error or a strikeout, is really unnecessary.

 

It did not run in our paper.

 

Kind of hard to comment on that. We don't know your situation, your news hole, etc.

It could well be that this was absolutely the right decision for your reality.

 

Just the opposite here. Dixie Baseball is the dominant youth organization in this area. Our policy is if we have Dixie state tournaments in town, we cover them as a semi-big event (Sports front w/art and photo gallery on-line). Otherwise, it's a call-in and a brief.

As for the LLWS championship, all we had was agate.

 

What makes LL vastly superior and special is the format or a regular season, the selection of the team, the playing of district, state, regional tournaments to get to the championship. No buying your way in. No dixie youth world series from teams just in the southeast. No weekend tournaments that mean nothing.

There's just something about it.

Does ESPN take it too far? Maybe. But it's still cool.

 

Personal philosophy should not play in here at all.

It is what it is.

Professionally, do you think your readers are interested? Play it to the level you think the interest is. Depending on where you are, what LL is like where you are, and what else you have, I think it's worth low front with a photo, but that's my opinion.

 

Readers are also interested in naked pictures of Katy Perry. Should I play that up?

 

Dumb comparison. You put in what your readers want to the point where you're not inappropriate or obscene.

If you're depicting coverage of youth baseball as inappropriate or obscene, you've gone over the edge. And the point is, that's a call that you should not be making, mainly because there's obviously a split in opinion even among learned journalists.

 

It's not obscene, but it is inappropriate.

 

I know that's what you think. My point is that there's enough feeling the other way that you should allow yourself the possibility that you're overreacting to it.

There's not a strong cross-section of readership and journalists insisting that nude photos of Katy Perry should be in the paper. (Although ...)