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"I have a story idea."

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by kingcreole, Jun 28, 2009.

  1. txsportsscribe

    txsportsscribe Active Member

    that was a regular occurrence at my old place. i got so disgusted that people in our own building didn't bother reading the paper that i said if i was publisher i'd make them pass a current events test based on stories we'd ran before they got their paychecks.
     
  2. doctorx

    doctorx Member

    I saw a letter to the editor of the Florida Times-Union (Saturday, I believe), complaining about Michael Jackson overcoverage while Tim Tebow received little or none after having gotten yet another award recently.
     
  3. rtse11

    rtse11 Well-Known Member

    I got a call in January from a woman complaining why we didn't run results from the local thoroughbred race track. Um, 'cause the track is dark until April …
     
  4. kingcreole

    kingcreole Active Member

    The best is when people call the sports desk to bitch that the TV Guide is wrong. When I suggest they call the TV station to complain, they usually pause for a few seconds and say, "Yeah, that's a good point."
     
  5. andyouare?

    andyouare? Guest

    I thought I made a lot of good points.
     
  6. MacDaddy

    MacDaddy Active Member

    Tebow coverage is on the religion page.
     
  7. SoCalDude

    SoCalDude Active Member

    He probably bought it from Aladdin when he went for a slurpee.
     
  8. BillyT

    BillyT Active Member

    To Pressmurphy: We had a similar thing happen with a great feature on Jim Calhoun, back around the time of the first national title.

    News side wooed us for it, but there was some other big display story or photo, and about three or four inches of this 50-inch feature ran on the front with a small photo, with the rest inside.

    Hence the verb "to calhoun."
     
  9. Stitch

    Stitch Active Member

    Better than the parents who wonder why we didn't run a picture of their kid in a brief for the dean's list for the local tech college.
     
  10. apeman33

    apeman33 Well-Known Member

    We get a lot of this all the time:

    Caller: "I heard you guys (did this thing I don't like)!"

    Us: "No, we didn't do anything like that. Where did you see that in the paper?"

    Caller: "I don't read the paper. I was told about it by (so-and-so)."

    Us: <click>

    My classic story will remain the caller who was reaming me for writing a story a particular way. Except that whatever she was mad about sounded nothing like I wrote. I picked up a copy and tried to find the things she was citing. Then something clicked.

    Me: "Ma'am, if you wouldn't mind, can you look at the very beginning of the story and tell me who wrote it?"

    Caller: "Mindy Molasses."

    Me: "So then you know what paper she writes for? Because she writes for the Podunk Press and this is the Hickville Holler."

    Caller: "Oh....." <click>

    I lose faith in readers more and more each day....
     
  11. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    And then you get the reader who complains about the Podunk Press while knowing that they are calling the Hickville Holler. They want you to tell the Podunk Press how to cover their events when you don't work for them.
     
  12. Big Circus

    Big Circus Well-Known Member

    We had an annual NHRA event in my old shop's coverage area (small daily 30 minutes away from a metro). ESPN did their usual tape-delay coverage and ran establishing shots from the big city rather than out in Podunk (keep in mind, this is an outlying county outside our small city outside the big city). We had a guy call our office the next day and complain that ESPN wasn't giving Bumfuck County its due and asking why that was.
     
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