Dear dimwit on the phone

I get Chinese spam. Among the more bizarre mailing lists I don't know how I got on: The Wood Brothers Racing Team (Trevor Bayne finished 29th today!), some illegal immigrants' rights pressure group and Who's Who of just about every damn thing.

 

Usually the bozos who think their stuff should run verbatim are the ones bringing in the stuff that needs to be pared down most or tossed completely.

Good job for you sticking to your guns...offering some coverage but not buckling to this knucklehead.

 

I remember the days when I'd get calls from local racers who used to bitch when I didn't mention every single sponsor when they won a race.

Racer: "The sponsor contract says that they have to be mentioned every time I'm in a press story. Because of you, he threatened to cut me off."

Me: "Not my problem."

 

Exactly. How much is it worth it to him to get all of his sponsors in the story? To me, at the moment, nothing...

 

I learned quickly in any business that you don't make a promise that you're not 100 percent sure you can keep. That goes for said race car driver who tells his sponsor that he'll be mentioned the paper, or the Little League parent who says he'll get in the team runner-up photo because he has "some pull."

 

I always find it funny when, especially with some small D-III schools, they have an SID who writes 2-3 pages of a game result press release, and the papers only give them 1-2 sentences in their briefs. They just want the score, the leading scorers, the record, the next opponent, and maybe a highlight.

 

My first question would be: "How much do you pay him?"

My response to whatever he said would be the ad rate for your newspapers and say, "You can get anything you want with an ad."

Problem solved.

 

Gator has the perfect answer...that's perfect.

Same would go for those racing sponsors. Sure thing, buy a strip ad and we'll run them under the story on the race car driver. Otherwise, I'm not clogging up my story with Joe Schmo racing a Chevron, Baxter Auto Parts, Feldman's BBQ....won Sunday's series. Ugh.

 

In response to Gator.

I will never talk ads with someone. Ever.

Violates every precept I was taught.

If they ask, I sen 'em over.

Am I being short-sighted? Maybe. But I am at a place where the ad reps aren't not afraid to promise quid pro quo, and I am not dealing with that.

 

See, call me old-fashioned, but editorial judgement is supposed to be independent of advertising.

I've seen more than once an ad on the page with the words, "Put ad with baseball news" , or stuff to that effect. Sorry, I'll use my own independent judgement on where the news goes, not advertisers.

 

In general yes, but can't you tell your ad department..."Podunk High won the state track title this weekend" We're playing it on the front, if you want to find a sponsorship ad to go across the bottom of the page.

or

grab a cheesy team trophy shot and let the ad crew build a sponsor page around that.

A difference between letting advertising run your section, and simply being aware of chances for some easy sells.

 

Yeah, I had one of those situations as described too. Someone sent me in some information from some motocross race or something, and I cut out all the sponsor crap and everything extraneous. Kid's parent calls to bitch saying they spent $100 and that's what they wanted included. I said "You spent $100 with whom, ma'am?" They proceeded to tell me some guy at the track made them a deal he'd put their kids in the paper.

So I said, you know, my paper doesn't get any of that money... not a cent, and it's completely our discretion what goes in and what doesn't. Maybe you should be calling that guy to complain to him that he ripped you off.

They also tried to complain about the fact they paid the money, their guy sent that release, and I actually went to fact check the thing and found out about five other local kids raced, so I included them in my story. Oh, the nerve of us not to get their parents' consent and on and on and on. I just said, hey, the track's web site is open to the public, you wanted to report an event, don't bother me about it.

Eventually I did tell them about the ad route, and eventually, something much closer to what they wanted ended up in our competitor's paper a few weeks later. Who knows what deal they or their PR guy made.