Team won't let you take your own pictures? Replace them with cartoons!

Editor to cartoonist: "Press runs in 15 minutes. Can you draw me up a cartoon of that game-winning triple-overtime touchdown?"

 

If you're strapped for art, the AP is bound to move a cartoon of the starting pitcher from the first inning.

 

Along those lines, say a lot of readers call in to support the use of cartoons and sales/subscriptions indeed go up. If the team owner calls and offers to remove the photography restrictions, do you accept the offer or do you stick with the cartoons?

 

Who says you can't do both? Use the cartoon as a centerpiece or to depict the pivotal moment, keep the photos to use between games or as secondary art (assuming the restrictions are lifted without strings).

 

Really, you try to do both. Without knowing the specifics of what the newspaper already does, in terms of space devoted, I'd say you find a way to make it a dependable component of your next-day coverage, much like you'd run a game notebook or "play of the day" graphic. You label it, brand it and showcase its special nature in some way.

I don't know if I see it on the front page -- at least not every time -- but let's face it: Editors have to be savvy marketers as much as keen journalists these days, and if you've got something really popular that distinguishes your newspaper's coverage from everyone else's, you exploit the hell out of it until the readers get tired of seeing it.

Obviously, it works better if the cartoon has an edge or some bite to it than just a drawn representation of game action, but if the readers enjoy it, why not?