Dear dimwit on the phone

We actually used to be able to do that, of course that was in the days of having a sizable staff...once jobs starting going, that practice was one of the first things to go.

 

I think you would've been justified hurling a stapler in his direction.

 

That's why the news side should stick to their city council meetings and police reports.

Shouldn't they check in with each local police officer during the week to see if anything interesting happened on their shifts?

 

They should. Can't count on them to call.

 

A parent on the local high school messageboard when on a rant about the local TV station not having the results of a football game from Bumblefuck High on the 11:30 football frenzy show. The anchor said the coach didn't call in the score. The parent had the same response as the copy editor; why didn't the anchor call the coach to get the score!
I am constantly awed by this kind of stuff.

 

You're correct, and we take that into consideration and contact stat guys directly for certain teams. But the problem is the stat guys should already have our contact info, because we gave each coach a rundown of how to contact us before the season began. so when he passed along the info on how to contact Big City Metro, he should have done the same with ours. Instead he probably junked it. And it's a veteran coach, not a newbie who doesn't know who we are. They just don't care because we're the Podunk Press and not the Big City Metro ... which is completely understandable, but you'd think after years of never getting staffed by Big City Metro some of these coaches would have a little more consideration for what we do. And this guy's team won on Saturday, so it's not like he was off in a corner hiding.

Phone call and an email and now it's Monday and still no response, which feeds into my biggest pet peeve about prep coverage -- namely, when the paper cares about doing coverage more than the people involved care about getting coverage.

 

Yes, once you make those initial contacts that should be enough to get the ball rolling. If they fail to respond, then they fail to get covered.

If you wanted to, it might be worth the time to catch the coach after a practice sometime soon and explain that you're not getting the results on Friday nights and ask him in person what needs to happen to get those results turned in. Having an in-person discussion is more likely to get results, and at the very least you've called him out on not getting results in.

Of course, you have to decide if that extra step is worth your time.

 

So Hacker, did you confirm it was your coach who called Big City Metro, or was it the opposing coach?

 

Amen to that. Like others on this forum, I waste a few hours at the start of each season sending a letter with my business card to every high school coach in the county (except for a few regulars who even send in blowout losses from the bus on an iPad) letting them when deadlines are and how to contact us. I figure after that, the ball's in their court.

Of course, there's still a few who like to send in results the morning after a match, even though my letter clearly states that while we're an afternoon paper, sports works the evening shift. I'm at the point where I don't want to send shooters out to their events, for fear of being left hanging.

 

Actually, a round of cop calls used to be part of our weekend reporters' jobs. Too bad the public-information officers rarely worked on the weekends, and the regular officers weren't authorized to talk to the press.

Our coaches have all received multiple e-mails about how and when to report scores. If they choose not to do that, there's not much I can do about it. I'll call coaches during the county and state tournaments, but regular-season results aren't usually a priority.

 

Yeah, it was the guy I'm thinking of. Both teams are from our coverage area, and the winning team has a good running back, among the leading rushers in the area. We cover almost 30 teams, and we didn't staff it because we knew it was going to be a blowout. It was definitely the winning team that called it in because none of the losing team's stats are in the box score. And I still need the losing team's numbers too, though it's not as pressing because they're god-awful and they have no one who's going to dent the leaderboard ... not that I'd know for sure, since they didn't report anything. I know I'm fighting a losing battle, but thanks for listening everyone.

I swear, sometimes I just want to stop covering all but the best game or two of the week and see if anyone notices or complains. There are some places where I'd get massacred by parents for doing that, but where I am now I bet it would take a while before anyone caught on. You know that episode of Friday Night Lights from a couple years ago where East Dillon plays its first game -- the one coach Taylor forfeited at halftime -- and there are so few people there you can hear the crickets chirping? That's what it's like at a lot of our games. It tends to fuel my cynicism about prep coverage. So those of you who work in places where everything stops on Friday night can take me with a grain of salt.

 

Yes, that's the other change we made when staff cuts came. I used to keep an excel sheet with our local schools, trying to make sure that each team got covered at least a couple times even if it meant hitting a game between 2-5 volleyball teams.

Now with staff cuts, that's gone by the wayside (and I think it's been for the better). We now devote more space to the big games of the week and blow them out with photos/graphics/sidebars etc. 1) It's fun to focus in on the best teams and watch those games; 2) those games have the bigger crowds and 3) I have more of my nights free because I'm not worrying about who's playing for fourth place. If you're in the middle of bottom of the pack, you can get in the paper via our email/call-in reports.

I would suggest you go with that, and yes you will get some complaints trickling in (water polo fans are frustrated with me right now...lol), but the pay-off on your end is well worth it. Not to mention, you get to have more fun designing your pages.