The Long Beach Press-Telegram knows sports

Or not.


Mariners, Marlins, they only play in different leagues - close enough for government work. And its only the front page of your paper.

 

Not to excuse it, but A1 designers do this kind of stuff all the time. They usually aren't the biggest sports fans, and have little understanding that accuracy when it comes to sports is, you know, important.

I run into it all the time. Besides just inaccuracies, I often cringe at the way they end up wording things out there when it comes to sports. Absolutely no sports vocabulary whatsoever.

 

I once had an A1 editor ask me for a front-page reefer for a Tampa Bay football game. I volunteered to type it in and send it to her, but she said "No, I'll do it." Fine, "Packers [or whoever] beat Bucs," I said. Of course, it came out in the paper as Bucks. I told Ms. Smarty Pants that it was nice that we got an NBA team.

 

The lady who designs our Web polls is very proactive in getting stuff on the site, but never comprehends the whole issue at hand. Example: "Which state college home game are you looking forward to the most?" Two opponents were from last year who do not appear on the schedule this year, one date was wrong and one game was missing.

Last year, it was "Which of these state college players will have the best NBA career?" Four choices listed, two were drafted, and one had no chance of playing professionally, Europe or otherwise.

 

Different leagues, different coasts, 3300 miles apart ... no big deal.

Hey, Dean ... how are those cuts working out?

I always wrote out exactly what I wanted the refer to say.

 

Ouch. That sucks.
I know a lot of those guys over there and the conditions under which they're working are horrendous at best.
I'd like to start a thread commending those guys when there's NOT an error because there's some good, hardworking people trying to do a job that's meant for a staff twice (maybe three times?) the size they've been given.

It's bad enough to get phone calls from the readers who call journalists out on mistakes, not realizing the process or conditions under which the job gets done. I'd like to think most of us wouldn't publicly rip another paper's department, especially when it's well-documented that said paper is Singleton owned and the good guys still there are struggling.

 

This was strictly a shot at management of the Long Beach Press-Telegram of South Bay.

 

I gotcha. I was probably being a little sensitive cuz I know how bad things are for a lot of good people there.

 

How dare you! I was such a sports-savvy news designer that they moved me into sports full-time.
However, I do remember a time when the Page 1 designer had Jeremy Mayfair winning a NASCAR race at California Speedway when I was at the track covering the race. That was a little embarassing.

 

These newspapers are like the young child victimized by Singleton as a predator who should know better.

 

Perhaps.

But they do have west coast deadlines.

An advantage that cannot be underestimated when you work at a place where extra-inning 7:30 games on the East Coast are 50-50 to get in the paper.

 

Read my post on the deadlines thread. "West Coast deadlines" don't mean a thing when half the Singleton papers can't get other West Coast scores in the paper (Southland teams excepted.)

That said, your point is well taken on this particular instance -- the Dodgers were in Florida on Tuesday, so there was plenty of time to catch this error. Ouch.