Pictures from the hunt - print or not?

I'm not a big fan of dead deer (or any animal) picture appearing in print, but in our area, it's almost a way of life to have your hunt published in the outdoors section. I think our only policy is that the picture has to be "clean", meaning there is no blood smeared all over the hunter, or animal; the tongue can't be sticking out; the wound can't be showing, etc. Also, we only run pictures of a first kill, a rare kill or a record kill. If Buck Doe (pun intended) kills his 12th deer of his life, his picture won't appear. But if his daughter Bambi Doe gets her first kill, we'll run it.

We've never had any complaints from anyone about these pictures running. Of course, I'd imagine if you're anti-hunting, you'd have no reason to even look at the outdoors section. And you'd be surprised at how popular that part of the outdoors section is. We were reluctant to even have it.

And oddly enough, one of my better stories last year came about when one of the pictures submitted piqued my interest.

 

I love that this ad is in this thread


And unless you have the DWR comfirm it's a record, give him directions to the advertising department where they'll hook him up with a special deal allowing him to toot his own horn.

 

We have dead animal picture day. Everyone in the building hates it. But someone is convinced readers like it.

 

I got the high score in Big Buck Hunter at the local watering hole. You should put my picture in the paper, too.

 

Do you not have a weekly hunting/outdoors page or something? Every paper I've ever worked for has. Of course, every paper I've ever worked for has also been in Texas, so ...

 

Imagine you're a deer. You're prancing along. You get thirsty. You spot a little brook. You put your little deer lips down to the cool, clear water - BAM. A fuckin' bullet rips off part of your head. Your brains are lying on the ground in little bloody pieces. Now I aks ya, would you give a fuck what kind of pants the son-of-a-bitch who shot you was wearing?

 

You work just as hard as other hunters out there. ;D

 

Hunting/fishing/national champ pictures do get in my rag, but I sit on them for as long as I can before running them. I figure if I'm a little slow, it will slow others who want to put their picture in.

 

Or even an outdoors page once every week or two might work. Again, that depends on how hunting crazy your circulation area is.

 

If you've got a hunting/fishing/outdoors section in your paper -- usually it's done weekly -- then it's perfectly appropriate to run there. Otherwise, if you're at a small daily, it could fit into whatever community section (local golf, bowling, tennis, etc.) you compile all that stuff.

Check with the local DWR/DNR office to see if it's something newsworthy (and be very wary of ANYONE claiming a bait-and-bullet "record".)

 

Oh, man. Do you really want to piss off people who are very proud of their high-powered rifles? Run the picture. I guarantee you the precedent has already been set in your paper.

 

And, in addition, if you compile a Fish Report:
Be wary of all submiting a record Trouser Trout.