How do you respond to readers who think you hate their team?

I've always wanted to use a line from Full Metal Jacket for callers like that -- "Here, you are all equally worthless."

Now that I've only got two more days on the job until I'm being shown the door, I may just use it if the opportunity presents itself ...

 

If you don't mind and it hasn't always been covered, what's going on, BCK? 2 more days and shown the door? Hope things work out.

For the original question, when I was in the business we'd get more calls about why we only put Team X on the cover when they lost and buried them inside when they won. And then Team X's rival won, they'd be on the cover, and when the rival lost, we'd bury that inside. All the time.

I'd engage these people, explaining the logistics and silliness of the idea of making story play decisions on deadline based on game results every night, and how that simply doesn't make sense to do so. Some saw the light. Then I'd pull papers and say how Team X was on the cover when they won on these dates. And they were inside when they lost on these dates. I'd give them examples for the rival teams, too, that shot down their theory. Most saw they were wrong right then.

For the ones that still insisted on arguing the point I had just refuted, I just thanked them for their call.

 

Again, he's asking about commenters. Not people who call, or people who have emailed you directly. But anonymous fucks who will take every opportunity to be an internet badass.

It's a worthless discussion.

 

No, this is the first time I've talked about it ... Paxton has moved to a universal design/pagination desk, and my paper is the last one in the chain to move production there (effective April 2) ... someone in Paxton's evil lair and world headquarters decided that the paper didn't need two people on the sports desk, and I got the short straw ... so on April 1 (actually, my last day is March 31, since we don't do a Monday paper) I'm out the door with a small severance ...

 

But whatwhat ALWAYS has important topics to discuss...don't you know that by now? He's only posted 37+ posts a day...that makes him IMPORTANT!

 

I've sought out few of those anonymous fucks/commenters -- "customers" or "readers" are other words you can use -- over the years, had good dialogues with some of them, and made the website better because of it.

I'm slightly devil's advocating, but I'm not sure ignoring every single one of them is a great policy.

"Worthless" is only if you're saying that every reader who takes the time to comment on something is that.

 

Let me also state that you, in your role, at your workplace, is different than what this dipshit is asking about. Which is to say what should every writer do?

And I still stand by the fact that getting into conversations with people who want nothing more than a flamewar is not productive.

 

Seems like the dialogue always goes like this:
"You hate our team. You always have Shelbyville's scores in and never Springfield's/"
"Because when there's six games going on at the same time, the Shelbyville coach understands and (calls/e-mails) his results in. Springfield's doesn't."
"Oh, is that how it works?"
"Yep. Your coach should have my card, I've given it to him several times. I'd talk to him and ask why he's not calling in."
"OK, I will."

They never do.

 

Do you guys ever seek out message boards like InsideCarolina.com, make an account and tell the haters that you are the writer and are willing to answer questions?

 

No. We report and write and let them hate us all the more.

 

Did you see Moddy's post about thinking before you post?

And, what Clerk Typist said.

 

This shit just writes itself.