Okay, now let's start a stringer rates threat...

You don't buy a product based on whether someone is putting money into it. You buy a product because you want it at the price it is being offered. Newspapers cannot operate because subscribers will not buy the product at a price to cover costs and ad revenue has declined.

What else is there? Put more into a product people won't buy?

 

We pay $100 for a writer to cover some of our events, the ones I can't get to. They're basically stories that run on our website and get sent out as press releases to state media.

Someone was trying to convince me to help out with high school football coverage on Friday nights. $50 a story. No fucking way. I gave 20 years of Friday nights to this business. No way I'm giving up Friday nights now for that pittance.

 

I've been out of the business for 10 years, but occasionally I get asked to do some high school football stringer work for a neighbor/acquaintance who runs the local paper. Each time I ask him how much the pay is, and each time he says -- with a straight face -- $25. I worked for a pretty large newspaper in my working days, and 20 years ago we paid $75. I told the guy that he should be embarrassed to offer that much, that it doesn't even work out to minimum wage. Jesus this business is stupid -- pay shit for a product, get a shit product. Glad I'm out.

 

This will be my 4th season covering HS Football for the local weekly. I get $50/game. Fortunately, I don’t depend on it.

I enjoy the hell out of it. Helps keep me sane at the end of the week after my FT gig.

It’s tough sometimes to Tweet updates during the game, but I try to have fun with it.

All that said, I can’t fathom having to do this full time.

 

GIGO. Or something like that.

 

I'm sure your releases are Pulitzer-worthy. Unfortunately, a large number of others in the SID business do not strive to reach that standard.
Every time I read about a football game that was won on a late touchdown and the SID release starts with a running play-by-play of the first quarter, I have to resist the urge to smash my keyboard. It's like when you were a kid opening a pack of baseball cards only to find that they're all worthless commons.

 

Junior Noboa says "Fuck you."

 

Had a recent SID release ...

"In an exhibition match defined by defense."

It was soccer. So yes ... blame soccer. It's kind of a defensive-oriented sport.

 

This is all you had to say, and everyone here would have understood. Cheapass fucks.

 

When I was in the SID world, the local daily ran my game stories pretty much word-for-word, but I had also worked at a daily prior to joining the SID world. I knew how to write a game story, and I wasn't a homer. I gave them copy they could use.

But, yes, some SID copy I've read on athletic department websites is pretty bad. I'm on the email list of the local Big College, and some of the stories that come across need a lot of work.

 

Well, thanks for the vote of confidence...

 

Would you believe that a daily newspaper in my neck of the woods offers $20 for a gamer and box score? And, in most cases, this outfit also demands photos. No, they don't pay any extra for the pics.