Parent offended that we didn't stress a team's first goal of the season

and 99.999 percent of the readers will laugh at them.

 

Yup... Mom, do you r-e-a-l-l-y want it pointed out that the kids hadn't scored until now?

Fucktard..

 

I'm not so sure... never underestimate the idiocy of the public.

 

My one and only year in radio, I got stuck in a town with a first-year soccer team. One of the moms was an ad rep and actually sold a highlight show once a week (A five-minute report, if possible).

The team didn't score a goal its first 10 games. One time, a shot hit the cross bar. I was actually there for that one and made a comment in the weekly report about how "Jimmy Soandsopherson almost got the goal but hit it just off the crossbar."

Next day, the morning show jock says "Loved how you emphasized how Jimmy almost scored! I mean, you sold that fucker!"

Hell, it would be two more games before the team got off another shot. I think they scored two goals in 15 games.

 

First real newspaper job, I cover the university football team I had played on a couple of years earlier, and it goes winless. Most of the same coaches and many holdover players. Trying to find positives out of that was a stretch, and although we had a few bothered readers, at least the AD understood I couldn't put enough lipstick on that pig of a season.

 

Fixed

 

Count on an e-mail complaining that you didn't really have to highlight that East Podunk didn't score a goal until the eighth match.

"You are unneccessarily embarrassing these girls who worked so hard!"

:

 

The relationship between journalists and parents is dysfunctional from the rip. It's our job to be objective. Parents think it's their job to use us as a way to pump up their little shit's self-esteem.

 

hell. we should collect them and create a best-of book.
[/quote]
Definitely would pay top dollar for that, although I think we'd have to make it a series. 100,000-page books just are too cumbersome to lug around.

 

Did you e-mail the woman back and say, "It's fucking field hockey"?

 

Red, I think you should go ahead and emphasize the goal. Then wait for the inevitable "you are making fun of kids that are working hard" e-mail.

Send second e-mailer a copy of first e-mail, with names attached.

Go to the next game and cover the fight between the two parents.

Hilarity ensues.

 

Everybody here lives in either Podunk or Bumfuck. The newspaper industry must be thriving there.