Dear dimwit on the phone

A new one for me yesterday:

Derrick, Derek and Deryk

At least I caught it after the initial press run and was able to change it....from the 2nd one to the third one. Argh.

 

Not on the phone but ...

At my volleyball officials meeting yesterday ... About 80 people so lots of questions ... Everytime there was a question the guy next to me would mutter under his breath about how this is stupid and we need to hurry and this a killing him ... But he would always have a point or comment to voice too. Or a question. So HIS stuff was important but not ours ... Hate that

 

Via e-mail, not the phone, a mother suggested we do a story on her daughter's 8U slow-pitch softball team that has qualified for a national championship* tournament being played here this weekend. The mother wrote "These girls have worked hard all year long to compete at this level. They practice 2-3 times a week. In most tournaments we have taken first or second place. These girls are so excited and deserve a bit of recognition."

Bad enough, right? The icing is this girl's team isn't a local team. It is based about 500 miles away from here.


* - One of probably 20 "national championship" 8U tournaments played this weekend.

 

Obviously not an N.C. State or Houston fan or Dereck would have been included. And let's not forget Derrek.

 

Once covered a rodeo kid named J2. Not a nickname, but his actual name.

My latest calls since leaving sports involve people wanting me to give them legal advice about how to contact the governor and get the DUI against their kids dropped. I shit you not.

 

We've had many a near fight in the newsroom because some dope walks in and wants his ticket or DUI left out of the police report. Sorry, don't want in the police report, don't drive drunk or get a ticket.

 

As the veteran in the newsroom during my first internship would yell when they left the room/hung up: Quit breaking the law, asshole!

 

Quote from Rickstain

Was Jim Carrey your boss?

 

Dear Swim Dad who keeps e-mailing,

Yes, we do happen to know the big state youth swim meet is in our backyard this weekend. In fact, we even had a lead story preview on the thing on Thursday (day the four-day event began). I've covered the event five times before (probably longer than you've lived in our area).

Yes, we know there are hundreds of kids (and their families) in town for four days. Yes, the hotels and restaurants will take advantage. If you want a business-related story, you should contact a business-related writer (not sports).

No, I don't care that two TV stations 40 miles away each gave you a whopping two minutes of coverage in one day (and neither one appeared online). In case you haven't noticed, they don't make news decisions based on what a small daily paper a two counties over does. And likewise for us. And likewise for the major metro in the same city as those two TV stations (because even though the state champs are always from that town, the major metro won't give you a bit of ink).

No, you're not a major event. You're getting coverage because you happen to be holding it in a dead period for sports in our state. No pro sports at all. No college happenings at the moment (other than football practice). No minor league baseball in town (road trip). So if you held this event in say, September, with prep football and college football are getting rolling, you'd be on page 6 or 8 (of a small daily paper) or whatever page classifieds is slated to start on the bottom of. If you notice, the high school state championships get very little coverage (staff report, no photos) because we're busy with basketball and wrestling in February
.


Yes, I know where you swim. My dad was the chief estimator of the project. He helped build the thing and each member of my family was given 25-year passes to said location. And I'm writing the article about your $1 million pool enclosure later on (knew about it last month, thanks, but your honchos weren't ready to announce it yet).

Yes, I know who your coach is (talked to him for preview and recap of other meet you held last month; I also have his cell number and we've exchanged e-mails) and I know some of your swimmers. Have interviewed several of them.

So please, stop bothering us. If we want something from your team, we'll go through your coach, the computer keeper (who, seriously, is great at getting us results of meets held in town) or the fitness center's owner (who I've known for 20+ years and I'm not yet 30).

We don't need you and your repeated e-mails (especially when you can't even spell my name and you tried to send an e-mail to a writer who was fired here more than eight years ago).

Unless you are suddenly named PR guy for the team (told the coach that would be a mistake), this should be the last time you contact us. Or else you could be turned into the local PD/courts for harassing communications.

Have fun on that hot concrete with our string of 90+ days with no rain. Must be lovely.

CKK

 

This is one of those events I hate.

Yes, it's a pretty big deal for the town -- you get hundreds or thousands of people in four several days.

Yes, it's a big deal for the hundreds of participants and their families.

But what are the interesting stories to your readers?

Unless you have some great feature angle, some hot-shot competitor, some Olympian coming to lend his/her name to the event, these are the hardest kinds of things to wrap your arms around and cover.

And these people who call always want it covered because it's a big deal to them or they feel you are obligated but rarely can come up with compelling ideas to write about.

 

I arrived to work this afternoon with one message and two e-mails telling me that the swim team banquet is tonight at 6:30 (which gave me four hours notice).

Apparently, the swim league championships took place over the weekend that just ended. And the team won its 9th straight league championship. Okay, then, swim team, answer these questions.

1) How come your season was so important this year that THIS is the first thing I've heard from you all season? And not only that, but some evidence suggests that the championship meet was held HERE. So THAT wasn't important enough to tell me about but your banquet IS?

2) One letter said that "other newspapers had people taking pictures." Okay, let's look at this carefully. Those other papers didn't send a photographer to Podunk for a summer swim meet. You what that was? Those were proud parents (and maybe coaches) from other towns taking pictures of their kids that they're thinking about sending in to the paper. And they know their kids aren't going to win anything. That's more than you've done for me in the last two years! And really, all I'd ask for is just a SCHEDULE! All you had to do was tell me when your meets are!

3) So, now, taking these other two things into consideration, do you honestly think I'm going to show up for your banquet tonight? (I'll even give you a hint: It's a two-letter word that begins with "N" and ends with "O".)

4) Don't EVEN think of comparing this to any high school sport. You've won nine straight summer league titles. Those teams have been carried by kids 5-12 years old because once they're in high school, most of them lose interest. A high school's team would curb stomp your 13-18 year olds and let's not even compare them to an AAU team. Do you still wonder why that, even if you were telling my anything about your team, that this wouldn't get better treatment than even resembling that of a high-school football team winning a state title? Never mind; you wouldn't understand.

 

Covering summer swimming sucks. Worst thing we have to cover all year, hands down.
First weekend of June is our big local meet. It's always somewhere between 90 and 95 degrees, the heat just radiates off that concrete pool deck ... and there, inches away, is a shimmering oasis of cool blue water that you can't touch.
It's pure fucking torture.