Two cancelled subscriptions in one week because of me

I wish parents would just say they're pissed because you didn't fawn over their kid (or team) rather than cracking on the quality of your section.

Remember that parents use the term "[insert sport here] coverage" to mean what you're writing specifically about their kid (or school) and to hell with every other kid, school and sport.

Remember also that the other 99 percent of your readers don't give two shits about prep swimming coverage.

 

Fixed.

"Finished basement" has a special meaning to me.

 

I had the same softball parent "cancel" her subscription every year for four or five years, followed by three pages of results of her kids' team to be published.

 

Even if you work at the smallest paper in the country, two out of whatever is one heck of a small percentage.

Don't let two people have that kind of voice when you have hundreds, if not thousands, of others to please.

 

Agreed.

If two people drop the paper because you don't have the X Games covered, would you be worried? Or would you chalk them up as the idiots they are?

 

Bookmark

 

I guess people just react to things differently.

OP gets all introspective and wonders what he is doing wrong.

When I get those a bunch of those complaints in a short period, I find someone who will listen and go on a short rant that usually involves the phrase "die in a fire," then forget about it.

*shrug* different strokes

 

If I were king for a day, parents would be banned from all sporting events.

Last night, I had to listen all night at a girls basketball game as a woman kept screaming, "Shoot the 3, damn it!" while her husband kept angrily dressing down the officials - "You're giving them the game! Giving it to them! Our girls don't deserve this!!!!"

A friend of mine who is a high school coach - and a damned good one - got an anonymous letter sent from a parent to the athletic director about a week ago, questioning the team's "style of play." The players, he wrote, feel like "a bunch of caged animals."

So on that Friday night, he had to battle as his players, with parents in their ear all week, tried to play uptempo all night long against his wishes. They lost to a two-loss team.

Parents should be banned from all youth sporting events. All of 'em.

 

Maybe you should send a message to circulation every time someone complains to you about getting a wet newspaper. Or if the carrier didn't put the paper on the porch.

And parents may not see the results because they can't read. I get ad staff asking why a certain brief didn't run in the business section and I tell them "Have you read the paper?" The answer is no 90 percent of the time.

 

What does a subscription of a couple of months to your paper cost?

Give some money to a couple of friends who don't get the paper.

Have them call circulation or, better yet, write a letter saying that they are head-over heels in love with your swimming and city rec basketball coverage and simply have to subscribe. After a month or two, they can quietly let the subscription lapse.

Then, for heaven's sake, stop pissing people off. You're eventually going to go broke.

 

Couldn't help but point this out.
I'm not making any suggestions about how SP solves his dilemma, but I think as thread after thread of woe-is-the-business and management-is-killing-newspapers spring up, that the "fuck 'em" attitude just might have a little bit to do with it as well

 

How many subscriptions were added because of your coverage?