Dear dimwit on the phone

Bizarre. Could your e-mail address be similar to someone at another paper's?

 

I think there are just groups out there who spam everyone indiscriminately. It's worse with the political stuff - "Of course they want to print my op-ed on Obama's real birth certificate!" - but I also get stuff like tornado data from the midwest.

 

Nope. No way. My email address has "RI" right in it and my last name is unique enough that there's nothing it could be confused for.

 

My full-time gig is at a weekly where I'm the only sports reporter on a two-man news staff. An area lady has been a quasi-freelance photographer for me for the past few years. She ran her own photo sales business and her son was in sports at an area school before graduating recently.
Her pics are always good and she is quite professional (no cheering) when on the job getting me pics of the school her son attended (which, luckily, is often good enough in a variety of sports to warrant photo publication).
I wish I could pay her, but we have zero budget for things like that. Thankfully, she's happy to get the photo pass because she then sells photos from the events.

 

I'm used to getting a lot of Spanish spam, being in California (especially from some Miami-based network) and the occasional Japanese or Chinese spam, but yesterday I got my first French spam.

 

I've been getting German spam for quite some time.

I'm still getting new spam intended for the news department even though my time as interim news editor ended a year and a half ago. I even had the webmaster put "Please note this is NOT a news address" next to my addy on the web site. Meanwhile, our new ME, whose address appears well before mine as you go down the page, hardly gets anything. I have to forward at least half my email to her.

 

We had a dude kind-of like that. We called him Moon Man. He had an observatory in his back yard. He'd take photos and write stories every time the planets lined up or the there was an eclipse.

Really good at it and never asked for a dime, even though we offered several times.

 

A guy in our area does the same thing. He takes pictures of all sorts from just about every school function. His kids went to school there and were heavily involved in the extracurriculars, and he started up a website where he basically gives the pictures away. We've used his pictures tons of times, and he's never asked for a penny. He's just happy to get some exposure for the kids.
Not only is he a great guy and a good photographer, he's saved our ass a time or two on photos -- including a state championship game where our own photographer shit the bed worse than a 90-year-old man winding down from a burrito and chili dinner. We called him up on deadline and he sent us some pictures within 30 minutes. For that alone, he'll always be on my good side.

 

We have a lady here who takes pictures at one of the schools as well as some community events. One time shue went with a team to a regional game we couldn't staff (but had arranged a stringer for), so I asked her to give us a call at halftime ... she called at every dead ball, so we turned it into a blog ... and she sent photos. Every now and the she'll ask if I can get her a credential for a nearby college game that has local kids involved, and I'm more than happy to accommodate that.

 

Yes, I've had a few moms over the years that do a great job and even hit deadline well...go to the game and photos are in my inbox when I get back to the office. Free of charge and quality work all courtesy. Of course they were only on hand when their sons were playing games...both college-bound preps...but it was great to have while it lasted. In fact, one of those moms has a younger boy coming to high school in a year or two.

 

Nitwit part-owner of local wooden-bat summer baseball team: "I sent a press release over last week about our season schedule and all of our season's promotions."

Me: "Yes, I pulled out the parts I thought we pertinent and ran a brief in the paper."

Nitwit: "Well, is there any way you could run the whole thing if I sent it again?"

Me: "No, we already ran it once."

Nitwit: "The thing is, we hire someone to write those press releases, and when you don't run the whole thing, it's like we're wasting money."

Me: "I'm not sure what you want me to do about that. I gave your release the space I thought it deserved. Keep sending me news, and I'll do my best to get it in the paper for you."

***SILENCE***

Nitwit: "Well, can you tell me when you might have room to run more than a just few paragraphs, so we don't end up paying our writer for work that doesn't make your paper?"

Me: "No. But like I said, if you have news, let me know, and I'll do what I can for you."

Nitwit: "Uh, OK." (Hangs up).

I'm pretty sure it's not my problem that he's paying someone to write crappy two-page releases that I have to pare down to a two-graf brief. I'm not denying him coverage, but I'm also not his personal PR firm.

Not to mention that there is a ton more local interest in Legion baseball around here than his lousy summer college baseball league. If I'm going to expend resources and news hole for summer baseball, it's going to be for Legion, not this clown.

Oh, yeah, and IT'S FEBRUARY!!! Give me a break.