Dear dimwit on the phone

This is a first, for me. Judging by the email, it's the girl's father:

I Know that your paper is 1/3 the size of years past but really??? !!! In the HS girls soccer roundup you REALLY needed to Hyphenate Cal-li Duthrie s name in two lines?? 1 word .. PATHETIC!! So happy I changed to the (competitor) years ago .. You may want to think about going to a (lesser newspaper) format, a free paper doing sloppy work would be acceptable!

 

A small-town mayor thanked me for covering his daughter's volleyball match, then told me his wife was going to cancel their subscription because of our (previous) lack of volleyball coverage. I'd think the mayor would subscribe to the local paper for more important reasons.

 

Sometimes she spells the hyphen.

 

I can't remember if I heard it or I covered it at one of my stops...but there was a girl named La-a (pronounced: LaDasha)

 

Yeah, we had another thread a few months back with most unusual names. Maybe we should revive that one. It was good for a few laughs.

 

Yep, I remember that one.

 

Caller complains there's not enough coverage of Podunk High. For example, everybody but Podunk High's football game was listed in the schedule of this week's game.

Except Podunk High's football game, which was supposed to be against Nowheresville High, was canceled because Nowheresville canceled its entire season. In fact, that was mentioned in the coverage of Podunk High's game last week.

When caller is told this, caller has no answer in response.

 

When your eloquence escapes me, your logic ties me up and arrests me.

 

We really could use another place to whine. Boo hoo! And before the oh-so-professional Snark got things off track ...

I'm not sure where I land on this, but my first thought is that the quote shouldn't have been published. The kid IS 17, after all, and a lot of athletes and teenagers are arrogant and do stupid stuff at that age that I don't think needs to be in the paper. Coach never should have said it, and because he did, I am OK with publishing it if that's the decision, but I would let someone up the food chain make that call. My solution might be to use a different quote from the coach, then paraphrase his thoughts on the kid, like saying something to this effect:
"It's a disappointing loss, but we'll look forward to the next game and hope to get better," said coach Stanley Steemer, who was critical of Podunk High running back Roto Rooter, who was flagged for unsportsmanlike for taunting.

Not really an optimal solution, but I don't see how you can call a 17-year-old kid classless in a publication, quote or not.

 

I like funny names

 

If I'm reading correctly, the author isn't making that judgement - the opposing coach is calling the 17-year-old kid classless. How is that not a big deal? I still don't see how it makes the kid look bad - Even if he IS behaving classless, most people are probably going to rail against the grown man who's calling a kid classless.

I understand completely the argument that sometimes, you might want to handle stories with high school athletes more delicately, like avoiding the "choke" term for a late inning collapse. However, to me this is either a case of quoting the coach honestly or not.

 

Understood. But I would opt to not use that specific quote. I know the writer is not making the judgment, but it's still the publication's judgment to use the quote or not. Some readers will certainly see that the coach is an ass for ripping the kid like that, but a lot won't. And it does make the kid look bad. The people who were at the game know what an ass he was being, but to put that out to all the readers in your circulation area is a little different. If the kid did something like get flagged for being an ass, then let that info tell the story of him being an arrogant jerk. But I don't think you would like your 17-year-old self or your son to be called classless in any publication. I would walk this line very carefully. And this is coming from someone who loathes his paper's unwritten policy of not identifying kids who miss a field goal or fumble or make a critical error or whatever. This is a whole different ball game to me.