But they work so hard!!!!!

Dan: The folks at the Glens Falls, NY, paper channeled you today.

That was the cover and feature story in their football preview section.

 

The problem is... said higher ups may have friends, family, etc.. that are cheerleaders and think this is a "GREAT IDEA!!!!"

Know thy higher-ups before walking down this dark road.

BEWARE!

 

We got the cheerleader call last year when two area high schools placed in the state competition.

A. Wanted a front-page story (it was one of the busiest Saturdays of the winter)
B. Wanted to run team photos.

The answers were no, and no. But I took the information and wrote up a brief to go on Monday's schools page.

Next day I came in to a voicemail from a grandmother just screaming how this should have gotten more coverage and demanded I call her back. I thought about calling her after deadline at around 1 in the morning.

 

Cheerleaders, chess club and speech teams deserve more coverage. Imagine one of
us trying to make it through a speech team practice — all that sitting around and talking.

 

I've gotten two "Why can't you cover the JV games too, they work just as hard and deserve it just as much" calls this week. Those are always great.

 

I'm sure there would be some interest, actually.

Why don't you cover (briefly) JV?

 

According to the Kentucky High School Athletic Association, cheerleading is classified as a sport activity, so I don't think it counts as not having to cover it. We only cover sports. Technicality.

And band? people tried that on me too. I told I never realized carrying around a clarinet or a flag was a sport.

 

I'm confused by this thread. 1. Sports shouldn't be covering cheerleading. 2. Every newspaper in the world is going toward hyper-local, community news. Get them to cover this, especially when they win something.

 

Doesn't Playboy already do a special on cheerleaders?

 

I am very much against freshmen or JV coverage beyond a sidebar brief. To me, in-depth newspaper coverage should be a reward that goes with making varsity.

 

To me, newspaper coverage should reflect interest.

We aren't in the business of "rewarding."

Maybe there wouldn't be enough interest in your community for JV coverage. That's fine and for you to judge. However, I don't think you can make a general statement about its deservedness.

 

You don't fucking cover JV. If they aren't playing varsity, it might as well be intramural.

Period.