To run or to ignore

I guess I have the exact opposite view. If this kid is good enough to get mentioned quite often in the stories we are doing we do week after week, yet we get no gratitude. However, Big City TV or Daily comes out and the coach who can't call in his score in a timely fashion and bending over backwards to help those people. You could have the pope in town, but if Channel 12 was there to do a story on the quarterback, the whole world stops.
Besides, the people reading Big City Daily or watching Big City TV don't know who your kid is. When they read the local paper and we have been providing great coverage of him all season, the people who read the paper know exactly who he is.

 

I have the reverse issue. Some of our local TV stations mention that players made the "All-Podunk" team but conveniently leave off the "The Podunk Press" part of The Podunk Press All-Podunk team.

The first time I heard it I almost wanted to say something to the TV sports guy, but then I realized that, in a way, it's a good sign that our all-area team's name, which has been used since the 1930s or so, is so well known in our area that there's no need to explain it.

 

If he's one of the best athletes from your small town, you have written stories about the wonderful things he's doing. You have been for four years. And he's been mentioned in countless season preview, game preview and game stories.

I used to do sports for two weekly papers in two towns about 30 miles from a major metro. The kids got tons of exposure from me and our papers, but little, if any, from Big Metro Daily. It's not like we'd run a brief if Big City Daily mentioned our kids, or even had a full-fledged story. But we would if they received some sort of honor or something, Player of the Week, or All-Metro. To the towns (one-school towns, both of them), it was news, and Big City Daily wasn't competition. If we're talking about a real newspaper rival, or media rival, I'd feel differently. But in my example, we aren't.

 

I get a lot of "thanks" from parents and coaches when I cover their games. People definitely get excited when they get more exposure, but who can blame them? I don't often feel unappreciated.

Let's do this a little differently: Would you run something if a local kid is featured in that "Athletes of Tomorrow" section (or whatever it's called) in the front of Sports Illustrated? Assuming it's a kid that's already been covered extensively in your paper, what would you run?

 

I had a mom call for a correction because her daughter was on our all-area volleyball's second team and that was wrong, since she was a first team selection BY THE COACHES on the all-district team they chose.

She couldn't understand that despite being better than kids not in our coverage area there were seven players in the area better than her and it was obvious we made a mistake by putting her on the second team.

 

It's very simple. You don't need to be writing stories based off made-up awards constructed by your competitors.

Does your paper not have a local athlete of the week feature?

 

We don't run Athlete of the Week stuff...we do honor the area's best "Three-sport" athletes at the end of the school year.

 

This made my day.

"I'm sorry, but you need to run a correction ... it appears my son isn't there."

 

You only think that's funny because you didn't take the call. I have taken calls like that. They are usually not pleasant at all.

 

My gut feeling is to ignore it or at best mention it in passing, since it's another media outlet's decision. If, however, there is some legitimacy offered because it's the official league all-star team that happens to be sponsored by them, or it's clearly a coaches' poll, then maybe it is worthy of some coverage.