Regional sports briefs

This afternoon, I received two e-mails from somebody threatening to call my supervisor because a brief he sent me about tryouts for his regional AAU baseball team did not make it into the paper. The tone of the e-mail almost made it sound like he paid for an ad that was not published, when in reality it was a brief run in a section of community sports announcements that we run as a service to the community. My policy in those sections is that because each paper is a weekly that serves one community, local, community-based briefs receive priority over things that are more regional in nature (and I always make that clear to anyone who sends this announcements). In other words, if there's a space issue, the local Little League signups will make it into the paper, while the AAU team that takes kids from all over might not. Seems like the fairest way to do it.
The truth is, it wasn't a space issue that kept his announcement from being published. It just simply slipped my mind. To be totally honest, when I'm putting together the paper, the last thing on my mind is making sure some regional brief makes it into the paper. That's not what I told him, but that's the truth. If he needs to be certain his brief will published, he needs to call the ad department.
Assuming he does call my supervisor, on a scale of 1-10, how seriously should I take this?
I say -3.

 

You're handling it the right way. You can't promise that his stuff will get in, it'll get in on a space-available basis.

 

One way to absolutely guarantee that his stuff gets in:

Buy an ad.

 

I've said those last three words so much to co-workers and callers-in alike, you could make a drinking game out of it. Look, I'll get your team photo in when there's room, but there has to be room first. And while it would make my job easier to run team photos in place of writing stories, I get paid to, among other things, produce content. No sense in having me half-ass it so a handful of U-10 team pix can get in.

 

I'd say your rating is a little high... more like -10

 

Take this very seriously. If these kids don't know about AAU baseball, they are missing out on a league that provides exposure so these kids can get college scholarships. I would call the guy back and apologize, run a story on AAU baseball, and do your best to serve the community. On the scale, this is a 6,000,000,0000

 

Buck, come on, you kind of know me. I didn't think I needed it there.

 

Absolute zero.

 

Back when I paginated, I used to run these things in chronological order. Sure, we would get calls from one school district bitching that another got more exposure, but I never waffled in my philosophy. This is a very, very small offense, SP.

 

We get the same calls, and the answer is always the same. We run those briefs in our section as space permits. If it's something really big (and I mean bigger than AAU baseball tryouts -- if that's even possible), we'll run it in the left rail on the front (I hate that left rail, but that's a story for another day).

 

Those community briefs will be the death of me. I could plaster a picture of a naked woman across the sports front and get fewer calls than i do if I leave out a local softball team's tryout announcement for one day.

 

why is it that the most bitching comes from people submitting free shit? and as for the scale: negative trillion!