Community journalism (bowling, racing, etc.)

[Inky_Wretch]

A local gearhead has hounded the sports department for years about why we don't cover the local dirt track racing scene like we do the "stick and ball sports" as he derisively calls them. After years of hearing him say the fact that NASCAR tracks seat 200k while football stadiums only hold 60-100k "proves racing is more popular than football," I finally told him to pound sand and leave us alone.

So he's moved on to calling the ME every Monday to hound him about covering the quarter-mile drag strip 30 miles out in the country and whatever other local racing is happening. Now my ME is considering letting this guy do a weekly local racing column.

I have mixed feelings. While I think it might be a benefit to our readers, I worry it will open the door for others to start submitting other "write ups." If we're doing this, what's to stop the local bowling guru from wanting the same? Or local golfers wanting a column listing who won the Wednesday afternoon scramble at one of the muni courses? Or, God forbid, a mother wanting to do a roundup of the weekend's 8-and-under slow-pitch softball league?

What's been your experience with this sort of stuff?

 

[alleyallen]

A little off the norm, but try putting a question box somewhere on 1B for your readers asking something like, "Want to see more local auto racing coverage? Call us or send an email and let us know."

 

[NoTalentAndFatToo]

A local gearhead has hounded the sports department for years about why we don't cover the local dirt track racing scene like we do the "stick and ball sports" as he derisively calls them. After years of hearing him say the fact that NASCAR tracks seat 200k while football stadiums only hold 60-100k "proves racing is more popular than football," I finally told him to pound sand and leave us alone.

How many people go out to the local dirt track on a typical race night? If the answer is 10, then you would be better off running a syndicated NASCAR column for your motorsports coverage (if you need to do anything differently at all). If the answer if 3,000, then you probably shouldn't have told him to "pound sand" and you should ask yourself why in hell's name you weren't covering it already.

As for the column...beyond interest, it depends if the guy can write and if he can keep it local enough to be worthwhile.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

A local gearhead has hounded the sports department for years about why we don't cover the local dirt track racing scene like we do the "stick and ball sports" as he derisively calls them. After years of hearing him say the fact that NASCAR tracks seat 200k while football stadiums only hold 60-100k "proves racing is more popular than football," I finally told him to pound sand and leave us alone.

How many people go out to the local dirt track on a typical race night? If the answer is 10, then you would be better off running a syndicated NASCAR column for your motorsports coverage (if you need to do anything differently at all). If the answer if 3,000, then you probably shouldn't have told him to "pound sand" and you should ask yourself why in hell's name you weren't covering it already.

As for the column...beyond interest, it depends if the guy can write and if he can keep it local enough to be worthwhile.

We run just about anything and everything that moves on the wire about NASCAR.

As for why we don't cover the local tracks, their seasons are just too damned long. They start in March, when we're still dealing with high school sports. Run all summer when everybody is taking vacation. And don't finish until October, when we're into the heart of football season. We'll do features tied to the local tracks, but we just don't have the manpower to staff dirt track racing every Friday and Saturday night for eight months of the year.

That's why I'm considering letting psycho gearhead do the weekly column. But, as I said, I'm worried about opening that door.

 

[alleyallen]

We had one of our former photogs send us a weekly photo and feature from the local track, and we grouped it with weekly NASCAR coverage on a page where we sold special ads, etc. Seemed to work pretty well, and because there were ads, we didn't have to work as hard to find copy to fill.

 

[Ike Broflovski]

I'd run -- no, sprint -- to the ME's office and tell him you'll try to do more with the local track before the yahoo submits any columns.

First of all, you know those columns are going to be flat-out abysmal. Second, you're probably going to have to edit them, and professional newspaper reporters have a hard enough time being edited, let alone people who don't know how to write for a newspaper. (I've had some first-hand experience at this a long time ago.)

NoTalent has a good point: there might be nobody there, but there might be several hundred, or even thousand -- more than a high school basketball game. So the track could be a source of half-decent features, especially in the summer. Even on weeks that you're up to your eyeballs in high school crap, you can have the guy call in results, highlights, whatever and do a little wrap on it in an hour. Hey, it helps fill the section.

What you can do beyond that is get the guy to provide you with names and numbers of every driver out there, so you can reach these people without much of a problem. Have him do all the legwork -- he'll probably be happy to. It could be kind of a win-win -- the fan only wants more coverage, not to write it. And, for God's sakes, don't let him write it.

 

[Ike Broflovski]

Oh, forgot: The one thing you can tell Mr. NASCAR-is-more-popular-than-football is that NASCAR does not have eight races at one track in one year, like an NFL team. I think you can say with pretty much confidence that the Carolina Panthers outdraws the Lowe's Motor Speedway -- even though it's an apples-to-oranges comparison to begin with.

 

[writing irish]

Ike nailed it. It could add to your local content, so try to get something decent out of what's going on at the track. But don't let Tardles have his own column, or you'll rue the day. Let him be the unofficial media officer if he's so keen.

 

[zeke12]

Shoot this ****er in the back of the head and leave the body on the ****ing ****-brown dirt track.

**** car racing.

 

[writing irish]

While my rational mind endorses the suggestions that Ike, Alley and NoTalent contributed, my less rational mind chimes in with Zeke.

Indeed, Zeke. **** car racing in the ass with a serrated, rusty iron ***** dipped in botulism sauce. No lube.

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

A little off the norm, but try putting a question box somewhere on 1B for your readers asking something like, "Want to see more local auto racing coverage? Call us or send an email and let us know."

Only the people who want it will respond.

This is not a "scientific" survey. A former boss wanted to conduct "our own readership survey." Fortunately, the man who hired me for my first full-time job had left the business for a marketing firm of which he had risen to VP. I e-mailed him and said, basically, what do I tell this creature? He explained in more detail than I can remember why this is best left to professionals and used just enough 10-dollar words to impress the boss. So we never did it.

You will never convert the outsiders, but if your ME is the reasonable sort, try to explain that appealing to participants does little except bore the crap out of the vast majority, who are interested primarily in the people they see on TV or that draw large crowds locally. But if he is among the "Names Sell Papers" crowd, forget it, start honing your youth-soccer skills.

 

[pressboxer]

Oh, forgot: The one thing you can tell Mr. NASCAR-is-more-popular-than-football is that NASCAR does not have eight races at one track in one year, like an NFL team. I think you can say with pretty much confidence that the Carolina Panthers outdraws the Lowe's Motor Speedway -- even though it's an apples-to-oranges comparison to begin with.

Not to mention the fact that there are not 16 Nextel Cup races ever weekend.

 

[Evil ... Thy name is Orville Redenbacher!!]

scrap the survey.

Try to cover racing with or with out the gearhead.

At my last stop, racing was big. Anywhere from 3 to 8K every weekend depending on the weather.
Just like you, it was Fri and Sat night for eight months. It also ran WAAAAAAAAAAy past deadline (easily 1a.m.).
We tried stringing with a local who came in to ***** about the coverage, but he wrote stories that were the same drivel every week - often sprinkled with a hint of sexual innuendo. He was also erratic and ultimately unreliable.
Finally, we began alternating reporters to go out on Friday or Sat and do a feature on one of locals for the next day (usually Sat.). We sent a photog. out on Saturday to get photos.
During football season, the guy who had to stay in the office and man the desk. He went out on Friday, before the calls started coming in, and got stuff for a feature.
We ran the weekend results in a Monday package with lots of photos.
Last I heard there local racing has evolved into a small weekly tab with a ****pile of advertising.

 

[Taylee]

Shoot this ****er in the back of the head and leave the body on the ****ing ****-brown dirt track.

**** car racing.

This option might be the best, but if that isn't for you, then do what we did with sprint car racing. Couple thousand people at the track every weekend so we developed this plan. Took the track's PR guy to lunch and told him everything I planned was only on the condition that he sent us timely results. Hell, the guy met deadline better than a few writers. We sent a photog as often as possible. We did a weekday feature whenever possible and we did cover the big season-ending racing. The bitching ceased. Can you do that for bowling? Partially. Have them e-mail results and maybe do a feature on the season-ending event. These aren't prime-time events anywhere, but it may be a good coverage decision in your area like it was in ours.

 

[Clever username]

You might want to dig into the gearhead's background a bit, if you haven't already, and see where his interests really lie before letting him write a column. Is he just a concerned, interested fan in the know or does his uncle run the track? We had a guy that worked for an ARCA team a few years back write a weekly motorsports column and half the time he wrote about his team's 19th-place finish rather than things people cared about. He obviously got ****canned.

 

[Kaylee]

Okay, so you can't staff an entire season. Doesn't mean you still can't do the occasional feature or something to keep everyone happy. This sounds like something worth dabbling in during the summer months, though clearly not worth doing on a race-by-race basis.

As for letting this schmuck pen columns...hell no, hell no, hell no.

 

[JBHawkEye]

We staff our local track on Saturday nights almost every week (there are generally about three or four weeks a year where we're just too loaded with stuff to cover to go out there). We run weekly point standings, and we go a little overboard on their big events (they have a two-day late-model event that pays $10,000 to the winner and draws about 70 cars).

Sadly, what started out as "gee, thanks for coming out" when we began covering the track has now turned into "you give the most coverage to (insert class here)." They've turned as whiny as the high school parents.

A few years ago, one of our area high school basketball coaches was working on the pit crew for a guy who drove in a class that was also racing during the big late model event. He came over and started bitching that I didn't write anything in the preview about the support classes that were racing.

My response: "The event is called the LATE MODEL Nationals, right?"

He says, "Yeah."

I say, "It's not the MODIFIED Nationals?"

"No."

"Then that's why I didn't write about them in the preview."

Oh, and to echo everyone else, DON'T LET THE GUY WRITE THE COLUMN.

 

[TheHacker]

I think the best way to handle this stuff is with freelancers. Maybe you have to cultivate someone. Maybe you take the local yokel and coach him up a little bit. Sure, that's a royal pain in the ass on the front end, but once you make him understand exactly what you want, you don't have to think about it anymore. One of the papers I used to work for had an arrangement like that. And yes, the writing was crap. But nobody cared. We knew we'd have something on the local dirt track every week, which kept all the dirt track fans happy. Perhaps more importantly, that kept them from complaining to management. And even more important than that, we didn't have to spend any time thinking about it. Reliable freelancers are gold.

 

[HejiraHenry]

We tried stringing with a local who came in to ***** about the coverage, but he wrote stories that were the same drivel every week - often sprinkled with a hint of sexual innuendo.

Do tell.

 

[I'll never tell]

We don't do anything with them because they're late as hell, too. But usually one flipping guy isn't enough to get the crap rolling downhill at my shop.

I'll plead with the ME to handle it with agate and two features a month (unless there is 3K there, then you figure 10 percent (can) read the paper -- that's significant). That way when they don't send you the agate, you put it off on the track owner. Well, Bubba's not sending anything, you ought to talk to him about it.

But to echo earlier sentiments, I'll bet my ass this guy has no clue what a compound modifier is AND that will be the least of your worries when you have to carve a 45-minute chunck out of your night to edit the toothless writing wonder.