Dear dimwit on the phone

Mississippi allows seventh- and eighth-graders to compete. We have quite a few of them in the girls sports, especially softball and soccer. So five-year starters in these parts are not unknown.

 

No, sports trainer, I will not write about your new business just because you're local. Buy an ad and get some actual paying clients, and then come back to me.

At least the last guy who tried that scheme offered to train me for free so I could write about the experience.

 

Yeah, that would've been a bad way to find out your school was dropping a sport, via the Internet.

 

It's training them for the future, when they find out their jobs are getting shifted overseas.

 

Dear Youth Soccer Coach,
Congrats on going "34-0" or whatever the hell it is in however many seasons you said. And congrats on winning another championship.

But we aren't going to do a story on your rec league soccer team just because you think it'd make for a nice story. You get a picture in one of our Thursday editions, and that's it.

Thanks for playing.

KY

 

KY,

That reminds me: There's actually no buzz about the local summer swim team that had won its league eight straight seasons before last year, when it finally got to the point that they couldn't win on sheer numbers any more because the other smaller clubs are actually developing talent (such as it is in summer swimming leagues). This could be the most peaceful summer ever. Because the only thing this town loves more than bandwagoning is hopping off the bandwagon as soon as it's evident that the ride is over.

Yours,

Apeman

Edit: Oh, how awesome of me to mix up the "dimwit on the phone" and "Letters to the good people" threads and write my response in the form of a letter. I also forget to phrase things in the form of a question when I play Jeopardy.

 

Sounds like a job for the business reporter.

 

You're right. That does sound like something for the business person to take care of. Most places have some type of "local new business" feature. Sounds like this would be right up that alley.

 

We have a business reporter? Sorry, he was cut three rounds of layoffs ago.

The local open house got cancelled due to a lack of RSVPs. It's obvious guy wants free advertising and I'm not going to play along.

At least not until high school sports end and we're suddenly desperate for local content.

 

Gotcha. Like the guy who called a couple of years ago wanting a story about his indoor soccer facility.
"But we're the Springfield paper. You're in Shelbyville. We don't cover Shelbyville."
"Yeah, but I want people in Springfield to know about the place."
Have a nice day.

 

When I worked for a business publication, I had several arguments over this. As a journalist, I wanted to write news: mergers and acquistions, new markets, new technologies that people might actually use, business strategies, what's selling and what's not, etc.

I got so sick of the puff pieces with business owners who wanted to make it seem like their new store was the greatest thing since sliced bread. The question they always hated was "What makes your business unique?" Few ever had a real good answer.

 

I'll have a six year starter on girl's basketball team here. In 5A, no less.