Dear dimwit in the publisher's office

I have worked for five publishers. The only one who wasn't at a private-owned paper was fantastic, but she also was a former sports editor and thus, recognized the importance of the sports section.

The privately owned papers? Used-car salesmen or family members who had it handed to them. None had a clue on how to run a business, let alone a newspaper, and none had any idea how to manage people.

The current one always gives my ME crap when I have three sports pages. He would rather plaster a feature story on sperm whales from the Washington Post than add a third sports page.

 

Regardless of context, there seems to be something inherently wrong with using the words "plaster" and "sperm" in the same sentence.

 

My publisher just terminated our Associated Press membership. I didn't think he could (there was talk he was trying to do it), but I found out last night while I was on AP Exchange trying to find a feature to fill out the bottom third of the sports page. This was at 9:30. Deadline's 11. Fortunately, the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks had sent out its weekly release earlier in the day.

Now I just have to wait for any letters from Kansas, Kansas State or Chiefs fans when they call or email to complain that there's no longer coverage.

Hyperlocal wins again. And my summer's going to be spent taking photos of little league ball games, otherwise I'll have nothing most nights.

 

We have an early Sunday edition that has all the ads, but the actual newspaper content consists of only feature stories for obvious reasons. Every now and then, someone buys the early Sunday paper on Friday or Saturday and then calls into complain that there aren't any stories recapping the Saturday games.