Dear dimwit on the phone

So about 30 minutes after I posted this, I got a call from an apologetic LL coach.
Turns out his 5:30 p.m. game was postponed for nearly two hours (rain). He had just arrived home and called me with complete info from the game and gave me some nice quotes about the team. Even better, a parent hooked me up with some photos. We're a weekly, so our deadline isn't until 2 p.m. tomorrow (I work late because it's convenient for me).
Now the other guy, he's done with me. When I got to his game, I took some photos of some parents helping fix the field so the game could start. I asked them their names and one guy asked me - quite rudely actually - not to run his photo. I'm guessing he called out of work to see his son's game and showed up early to fix the field.
I'm on the fence about if I want to run his photo or not. I'm thinking of running it and when he complains, I'll tell him I wouldn't have run the photo if I had a story, but the head coach never called.

 

Everyone will expect it, because "tennis parent" will run around town telling everyone they got you to make an exception.

 

I wouldn't run the photo. Not the guy's fault the coach stiffed you. And I can't imagine it's a very worthwhile photo anyway. People fixing a field for a game that you don't have information on?

Not sure that's a battle I'd want to fight.

 

Agree. That's a fight you can't win. You'll end up looking like the horse's arse.

 

Code:

 I'm on the fence about if I want to run his photo or not. I'm thinking of running it and when he complains, I'll tell him I wouldn't have run the photo if I had a story, but the head coach never called. 

You sound way more excited about getting back at people/showing off your authority than being a competent journalist.

 

I wouldn't either. It's not worth the journalistic man points. And you do have stuff from the other game. On top of all that. when someone complains about Podunk Rotary getting more ink than Podunk Bar and Grille, tell 'em the truth ... the coaches shit on you.

 

Write 15 stories, shoot eight games and put out six sections in three days and you'll know how I felt.
My problem was rain had killed my section. We're a chain of weeklies and my coworker is on his honeymoon. The only way I could put out the section was by getting the info from the coaches, who had confirmed with me it wouldn't have been a problem.
And I liked the photo of the guy fixing the field because volunteers worked on the field for an hour to turn it from sloppy wet to playable. I also liked it because in the background, you could see the kids warming up. Not main art stuff, just something for a standalone shot.

 

Publisher came in today and said the parent had called her. She suggested that we run the photo and correct cutline in our weekend combined paper with the sister paper in the neighboring town. Since the sister paper is the "World HQ," she figured it would look more like someone higher up than me called for it to repeat and I could save a little face (Although it was the coach who submitted the pic who made all the mistakes).

I didn't have much of a problem with that, so I sent it over.

 

Your publisher has too much on their hands.

 

Dear parent:

I didn't misspell Chris' name. Neither did the coach when he put his name on the roster. You did...on Kris' birth certificate. If you want your kid's name to be spelled correctly in the newspaper, spell it correctly on day one.

Signed,

Expendable, and all the kids teasing your son for having a girl's name.

 

Exp,

I think you are out of line here for suggesting that parents are required to spell names a certain way ... but if you can get all the Duanes, DeWaynes, Dawaynes, Dwyanes, etc. to all agree on a common spelling, I'll buy in.

 

How about if I can get Caitlyn narrowed down to, say, four?