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reformedhack

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A mole inside the Tampa Tribune newsroom passes these three tidbits along. Be sure you read the last bullet item to fully appreciate the gravity of the first two.

* The advertising department needs help. So much help that, according to an e-mail distributed to all employees, "anyone who provides an advertising sales lead that can be closed by one of our sales representatives will be entered into a lottery for a pair of [club-level tickets to an upcoming Bucs game]. ... The advertising representative who closes the sale also will be entered into the lottery. Go out and pitch to your favorite places you do business with daily. You could even offer to take them to the game if you win."

* The circulation department needs help. So much help that, according to another e-mail distributed to all employees, "any employee who sells a subscription [using the attached form] will be entered into a lottery for a pair of [club-level tickets to an upcoming Bucs game]."

What wasn't in the e-mails, but certainly implied: "Our ad and circulation departments are working re-e-e-ally hard, but they're just not getting the job done. Reporters, right after you make your initial daily beat calls, do your interviews, post blog items, file early leads to the Web, rewrite for print, do your talkback with the TV partner, record your podcast, make the daily beat follow-up calls, work on your weekender, create online-only content and perhaps cover an event tonight, as long as you're out there, why don't you see what you can sell? And, you copy editors, you're not doing anything in the daytime before you show up to work around 4 p.m., right? Maybe you can, you know, ask around or somethin' before you come in to read copy, select photos, do layouts, take calls from coaches and psychotic readers, post to the Web, coordinate with Graphics, send stories to the online and broadcast partners, contribute to the AP report, and deal with writers and photographers."

* In other news, executive editor Janet Coats announces there will be as many as 20 additional newsroom layoffs by December.

Good lord. Can we take up a collection for these beleaguered people or something?
 
reformedhack said:
* In other news, executive editor Janet Coats announces there will be as many as 20 additional newsroom layoffs by December.

You go, girl.

Please. The sooner the better.
 
I was trying to explain to a non-journo buddy of mine today how TBO.com used to be one of my favorite online newspaper ventures.
Not so much anymore.
 
If you cannot ****ing sell advertising in a market where a ******* baseball team is playing in the ****ing World Series, you do not belong in this business. Period.

IS IT THAT HARD???
 
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reformedhack said:
Good lord. Can we take up a collection for these beleaguered people or something?
Hell, they can scalp those club-level Bucs tickets they win in the sales and circulation lotteries.
 
If Carl Crawford takes over as the Parenting editor, it's over
 
Elliotte Friedman said:
Who is paying for the tickets?

The Tribune has a marketing agreement with the team and receives stadium tickets, a luxury box, reserved parking, non-watered-down sodas, actual-meat hot dogs, etc.

(If it was a wisecrack remark, it gave me a chuckle. I figured I'd reply both ways, just in case.)
 
steveu said:
If you cannot ****ing sell advertising in a market where a ******* baseball team is playing in the ****ing World Series, you do not belong in this business. Period.

IS IT THAT HARD???

I still have yet to have anyone give me a satisfactory answer as to why it's so difficult to sell advertising in the sports section.

"Well, women make all the purchasing decisions now."

Uh huh, and they don't have kids playing prep sports? Friggin' bull****.
 
The newsroom doesn't "need help" -- it already gets help, from citizen journalism!

What they're trying to invent in Tampa, apparently, is citizen ad sales and citizen circulation sales. Don't get huffy just because the first citizens asked are the ones in the newsroom.

Some day, the man on the street will have a shot in that ticket lottery, too, if he does some ad or circulation worker's job for him!
 
I'm almost desensitized to reading inane ideas like asking reporters to sell ads and everything else under the sun. We've read enough stories on this board about papers losing their mind and backbone. But if you're going to ask me to do this crap, Mr. Bossman, don't insult me with a chickensh*t lottery chance at Bucs ticket, which I'm not going to win and even if I did I'm not going to do cartwheels over since my job kind of entails enough sports, traffic and other bullcrap already. I'd rather play golf on my day off, thank you.

If I'm going to be your quasi-ad rep, offer me commission like your real ad reps. I'll still tell you to shove it, but at least respect you for making a reasonably stupid offer, instead of a completely stupid one.
 
deskslave said:
steveu said:
If you cannot ****ing sell advertising in a market where a ******* baseball team is playing in the ****ing World Series, you do not belong in this business. Period.

IS IT THAT HARD???

I still have yet to have anyone give me a satisfactory answer as to why it's so difficult to sell advertising in the sports section.

"Well, women make all the purchasing decisions now."

Uh huh, and they don't have kids playing prep sports? Friggin' bull****.

It's not that it's hard to sell it, it's that the powers-that-be don't give a crap because they believe that they need to gear all ads to well-to-do women that make all the buying decisions.

And presumably they would never, ever read the sports section.
 
Ace said:
deskslave said:
steveu said:
If you cannot ****ing sell advertising in a market where a ******* baseball team is playing in the ****ing World Series, you do not belong in this business. Period.

IS IT THAT HARD???

I still have yet to have anyone give me a satisfactory answer as to why it's so difficult to sell advertising in the sports section.

"Well, women make all the purchasing decisions now."

Uh huh, and they don't have kids playing prep sports? Friggin' bull****.

It's not that it's hard to sell it, it's that the powers-that-be don't give a crap because they believe that they need to gear all ads to well-to-do women that make all the buying decisions.

And presumably they would never, ever read the sports section.

selling into sporsts sections is difficult, enough so that ad reps don't waste their time doing it. Most are on commission and see no value in putting in hours for a sale likely not to go through
they continually mine the same accounts, rather than chasing new business
 
As much as the extra work would suck, if our higher-ups said they need help selling ads and that we would receive commission in some form, there's something about having my fate in my own hands (rather than the hands of someone downstairs who doesn't know what I work on every day) that appeals to me.
 
playthrough said:
I'm almost desensitized to reading inane ideas like asking reporters to sell ads and everything else under the sun. We've read enough stories on this board about papers losing their mind and backbone. But if you're going to ask me to do this crap, Mr. Bossman, don't insult me with a chickensh*t lottery chance at Bucs ticket, which I'm not going to win and even if I did I'm not going to do cartwheels over since my job kind of entails enough sports, traffic and other bullcrap already. I'd rather play golf on my day off, thank you.

If I'm going to be your quasi-ad rep, offer me commission like your real ad reps. I'll still tell you to shove it, but at least respect you for making a reasonably stupid offer, instead of a completely stupid one.


Word for word. Sell and ad, and you get in a ****ing lottery?
 
They figure if we're stupid enough to go into this profession in the first place, then we're stupid enough to bite on a moronic offer like this.
 
Anyone that thinks that selling ads is easy, even forgetting the market we're in now, should do it for just one day.
 

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