What was your most recent chiding?

I got one today via email. (I got several from my wife but those don't really count.)

The writer suggested I was not a fan of her son for not mentioning him in my blog, when I mentioned a handful of his Jr. American Legion teammates in regard to their conference championship. She insinuated that I never give her kid any credit despite his hard work.

The worst thing is that her husband works in our advertising dept.

 

"I was going to send you off with a chiding, but now I want to include you in the game."

 

"There's a difference between not liking one's brother and not caring when some dumb Irish flatfoot drops him out of a window."

The most recent serious one came during state tournament time.

We're not a large daily and don't have many pages. During state in the spring, we have baseball, softball, track, tennis and golf. We can fill a five-page section with local stories and results.

So, we did just that and one asshole called in: "Are people who want national sports supposed to suffer?"

"Yes."

It's called justifying our paychecks. Management was happy because people were buying the paper for the local roundups from state.

 

Readers complaining isn't chiding. Bosses complaining is chiding.

That said, I would tell the lady that you aren't supposed to be a fan of any of the players.

 

I think it was when I expressed misgivings about a headline in the tabloids ...

House, while I understand your space issues and the fact that small papers cannot be all things to all people, I also understand this reader's frustration. By lopping out all the wire copy, you're basically forcing readers to seek that information from other sources.

 

I'm waiting for my chiding ...

 

Fish Hack, huh? You'll get your chiding from Pickle_Juice. And like it!

 

On a day like that your editor and the advertising people have got to get together and figure out a way to get you guys more space. In this case the reader is right. You can't just act like the state tournaments were the only thing going on in the world that day. I bet you have just as many people subscribing to read the MLB roundups as you do to read about high school stuff. That's not even to mention the NBA, NHL, NASCAR, tennis, golf, etc. fans who want to know what happened in those sports.

 

But they're a large daily and don't have many pages! Didn't you read his post? There was NOTHING else that could be done. Nothing.

 

Five pages of local roundups? Yecch.

Hey, I can make farting noises with my armpits. Doesn't mean I feel compelled to do it at work.

 

But you should do a video of it for the website. It's exclusive content.