Dear dimwit on the phone

We had a woman who worked at the school (bus driver, maybe) call and ask us not to print the charge that she had provided alcohol to a minor.

Either our reporter had missed it, or it was by an agency we don't check logs for, but we did go back and find it.

 

Classic.

 

Do your phones get pretty quiet after high school season ends, in terms of civilians calling to ask about stuff, dumb or otherwise?

 

For the most part, yes.

And thank God for that.

 

But it does mark the start of kidball team photo season. At least most folks are trained to email them in. But it's so tempting to reply to: "When does our picture run" with "If you had a subscription, you would know ..."

 

What do you mean, "the start?" Haha.

We've already had kiddie teams turning crap in.

 

I wish. God that would be awesome.

We get little league parents, swimming parents, people in triathlons, etc. Not to mention the usual suspects swearing that the Major League Baseball standings were wrong or wanting to know what channel some rugby match was airing on.

One of the best things we ever did at one shop was establish a weekly community sports for that stuff, make some rules regarding submissions (including photos) and stick to our guns. We ran 2-3 team photos a week during the summer, but we made it DAMN CLEAR that no one would run more than once and we would pick who ran when. Sometimes the line to get published got a little lengthy, but that told me we were doing a good job of serving the community because people valued the product enough to send us their stuff.

 

One thing that always comes up this time of year is youth summer camps. Some suggestions to others from a plan that worked exceptionally well....

We made an announcement in print about a 3-4 weeks in advance that a full listing of local summer camps for any and all sports would be published on a certain date (we picked a Wednesday when we ran Community Sports and then again on a Sunday because that was the largest circulation). We told them what information we needed (dates, locations, sport, PRICE, ages, etc.) and that we would run it free of charge as a community service if information was submitted by a certain date. (I had to give myself several days to process the info and paginate the page.)

We had more than 100 camps, representing more than 20 different sports, submit information. I made it all uniform and easy to read (slightly larger than agate type and we needed an entire open page). Most people followed the instructions very well and were quite pleased. Of course, there were a few dimwits who missed the deadline and got pissed when we told them they would have to purchase a paid ad if they wanted their stuff to run. ("Hey, if everyone else in town can get their act together, why can't you?")

I found this approach far superior to having stuff trickle in for weeks and have to shove it in local briefs day after day. If some kid wanted to go to say, basketball camp, he could look at all the different camps in the area and compare dates, prices, locations, etc. All in one spot.

 

Ugh, camp announcements. I fought in vain for years to make for-profit announcements run as paid ads. Only charity and fundraising for cancer kids or team equipment, etc., as free announcements. Talk about losing a ton of ad revenue.

 

Always seems to pick up after Memorial Day after seasons end and school lets out. Soon to be followed by "Why didn't you cover All-Stars last night? We won!" "Because this is the first I knew there was an all-star last night."

 

Mark: I am not going to quote everything, but can you touch back with us in a week and maybe two weeks to let us know how many people who missed the deadline have called and are begging and pleading?

I think it's a great way to do it.

 

Since Iowa plays its high school baseball and softball in the summer, it never ends.