Small Colorado daily draws flak for football photo

The Montrose Daily Press drew some heat for printing a photo of one of the star players fumbling. Someone at paper writes editorial explaining itself.

Here's the editorial:
http://www.montrosepress.com/articles/2009/11/30/opinion/editorials/doc4b0de2e7319ce160294590.txt

And the original article with the photo in question:
http://www.montrosepress.com/articles/2009/11/22/sports/doc4b08ba5c2df3c576773426.txt

The comments show the good attitude the townsfolk has on the matter.

 

You only write about us when we fumble. At least that's all we remember.

 

Like it or not, those are your readers. And your advertisers.

I don't blame the paper, and if they want to take that heat good for them. But I wouldn't run that photo, because I'm a wuss.

 

we caught hell last year for running a picture of a football player crying after losing in the championship game.
you're great as long as a team is winning and shit when you cover them losing.

 

DENIED!!!

 

A photographer where I used to work was taking a sideline picture of a kid lying on the ground crying during the late portion of a tough loss to their top rival. While she was doing that, the kid's dad came down from the stands and told her she didn't have the family's permission to take a picture of their son. She informed the father that she didn't need their permission, and they argued for a bit before the photog finally turned her back on him so she could work. When he went back in the stands the photographer looked up and both kids' parents were flipping her off. She snapped off a great picture of them. Too bad we didn't run that one. But we did run the one of the kid crying. Told the whole story of the game.

 

Nobody has mentioned the cutline yet?

 

The story mentions a late fumble but not the player's name. If you're not putting his name in the story, why are you running a picture of the play?

 

And putting his name in the cutline.

 

"You only write about us on SportsJournalists.com when we have grammatical errors in our cutlines!"

 

Can somebody explain to me why you would even hesitate to run this photo? The team lost and this picture seems to illustrate that, just like a player crying after a loss tells the whole story. I think most people here agree with that, but if someone has an honest-to-god set of reasons why you shouldn't run a photo that might show the local team in a less than stellar light, then please share.

Maybe we should stop naming players on losing teams, as well.

 

I wouldn't say they shouldn't, but I will say I wouldn't.

Because I work in a tiny town and I like my paycheck. Pissing off 15 readers a month over a couple of years adds up to a significant portion of our circulation. Let alone if one of them's an advertiser. Almost everybody who opens up my sports section and reads it is a fan of the local team. When those customers open up the paper, I want them to be happy with the product, and that usually means slanting the stories and the choice of photos a certain way. And I'm okay with that.

Yeah, yeah, I know that means I'm not a real journalist. I'm okay with that too. Paycheck cashes the same.