Dear dimwit on the phone

No matter how hard you try, you're not going to please everyone. Oh, well, life goes on.

 

The new ME is more distraught over it than I am (which is not at all). She's beginning just her third week here and this was the decision she made on day 10 of her tenure. She didn't know those girls from any other girls anywhere on this planet. She just thought it was a good photo.

One of the pics that ran on the sports page during the tournament was of the home team's star player (5' 8") having her shot blocked by one of the other team's star players (6' 2") in that game. And ever her mom said, "Well, that's just how the game was," and had no problem with that picture running, which (IMO) was very gracious.

 

As far as I know, it's still OK in the dugout. There's a scorekeeping app called Gamechanger that some of our locals use. It updates in real time, uploads the final stats straight to MaxPreps, and is generally all-around great. I've never heard of anyone getting fussed at for using it to keep score instead of a scorebook.

 

The local juco is using it. Makes covering them on the road a snap. But they can't keep season stats on it because they say the NJCAA has a rule that makes the NJCAA website the only place a team can post its season stats.

 

We have a few basketball teams in our coverage area (northwest Ohio) that use an iPad to keep track of stats during a game, but they also keep a "traditional" book at the scorer's table. Makes for quick E-mails of stats when a game ends.
Last year, one of them used a similar program for baseball, with the assistant keeping track on his iPad while in the coaching box. That won't be allowed this year.

 

Why would you advise against the photo? If it tells the story, don't you have to run it? Tears or cheers, all day long in the postseason.

 

Agree with Rhody here. Managing editor probably liked the photo because it told the story. We run dejection shots from playoffs all the time. Why not?

 

When I saw the photo myself (after it was printed when I got back on Monday), I didn't really think it said anything other than, "Here's some girls sitting down." I thought it was boring. So if I had seen it, I'd have told her not to use it because I didn't feel it was an interesting picture. The girls weren't showing any emotion, I thought. They were just watching the game.

Now if that photo showed them visibly upset, I could have used that. THAT would have told the story of the game. This particular photo that ran could have been just the girls sitting and watching in any quarter, it was that generic.

It was the grandmother that read the meaning into it on her own. We had 20 other photos from the stringer that would have told the story better. One I would have probably used showed the coach visibly frustrated with what was going on.

This is what ran. Maybe one girl has some emotion on her face but I don't see it in the others.:


This is the one I liked better:

(I don't know whether or not I would have cropped the Tiger out, although I guess it's a moot point now. Out of context, it looks like the coach is being hexed by his own team's mascot.)

 

Seriously. is that an Onion Sports photo?

 

I'm sorry. I really wanted to get across just how much this dude was overcompensating for something. I will take the Grammar Police's ticket and pay the fine.

 

If you can print pictures of them being happy, then you can print pictures of them being upset. It's called the real world.

 

Look at the photo I posted. Can you tell what they are in the photo, either happy or upset? Again, I thought it was simply boring. And it's not that I haven't printed the upset photo before. I did when they lost in the first round in 2008 and the only flack I caught for that was from the 75-year-old woman who comes in to do our "100 years ago" column.