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WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE?

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by PalmettoStatesport, Jul 25, 2006.

  1. I've just spent the last two hours typing in kids names from our statewide YMCA swim meet. Obviously the story is extremely long with a bunch of names and where they finished.
    Anything you would've done differently? I am open to any suggestions.
     
  2. TwoGloves

    TwoGloves Well-Known Member

    That's what agate is for.
     
  3. I'm at a small weekly (three times a week) with just a page and a half for sports.
     
  4. PeteyPirate

    PeteyPirate Guest

    I can't speak for anyone else, but I might have swallowed a revolver rather than typing in a YMCA swim meet.
     
  5. leo1

    leo1 Active Member

    DID YOU TYPE THE NAMES IN ALL CAPS?
     
  6. My thoughts exactly FirstDownPirates, but a lot of their parents are big time advertisers.
     
  7. Mystery_Meat

    Mystery_Meat Guest

    Then you should only include the advertisers' kids in the story. Then run a house ad saying the only way you'll run a story about someone is if their parents buy an ad. Maybe work up some rate cards (quarter-page ad = 8-inch story, full back-page ad = 40-inch opus declaring Jenny Volleyball the new messiah). Hell, the ad people want us to treat newshole like that indirectly, might as well drop the pretense and sell out to the highest bidder. But make sure you get a share of the commission.
     
  8. Hank_Scorpio

    Hank_Scorpio Active Member

    Write a normal story as you would, best team, best player,etc.


    Then just add the agate results at the bottom of the story. Reduce the type slightly from the copy type, to make sure the story gets more prominence.



    As far as the parents being big time advertisers, since it is a smaller town, they likely need the paper as much as the paper needs them.

    Even if they stop advertising for a week, anyone with smart business sense won't let something like this stand in the way of their business. And if they do, you get to write a business closing story in a few months.
     
  9. OneMoreRead

    OneMoreRead Member

    Hell, it's 2006.

    Don't the YMCAs have computer's these days? Couldn't they email you the results?
     
  10. Chi City 81

    Chi City 81 Guest

    Even if they did, I'm sure it would have been coded incorrectly, e.g. names in all caps, last names first, age, sex, etc.
     
  11. Hank_Scorpio

    Hank_Scorpio Active Member

    Palmetto,

    Don't you have a clerk that could have done the typing? Even at the smallest paper I've worked at (9K daily), we had someone who would type in briefs and stuff like that.

    She wasn't a journalism person, but someone who could type and knew how to spell, so she would do that type of stuff and then proofread pages before being sent to print.
     
  12. EE94

    EE94 Guest

    write the story based on the best angle - kid winning or whatever - and run the names of all participants (if you must, which is what it sounds like) in an agate box beside the story.
    For your own sake, don't fill up a story with what is essentially agate.
    And don't write for advertisers. Write it for your readers, and satisfy the advertising obligation with the agate chart.
     
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