Dear dimwit on the phone

I had someone from the last World Cup site email me to let me know that there was an afterparty going down across the street from the stadium. I shot an email back and asked him exactly how he felt that information was important for my readers, in a small local community thousands of miles away, and he said "Well, if your readers are cool, they'll want to know".

Hard to dispute that logic.

 

We got one yesterday:
A PR guy will "give us the opportunity to interview (prominent local athlete)" at the personal appearance he's making at some business in the area.
Uh, we have a writer who covers his team, we interview him every day.

 

Somehow I doubt that.

 

Please tell me that now that you've had time to think about it you at least understand why it's creepy and that the parents were justifiably concerned.

 

I'm friends with the PR director for a major company that has retail stores nationwide and holds multiple public events, almost on a weekly basis.

He believes they should not send out any press releases about their events until seven days before the event, if not later. Anything more "gets lost or ignored," he says, and tells me newspaper people work on short notice instead of planning long-range.

I've told him that's not true, especially in today's industry. He still sends them at the last minute and then wonders why "the media" doesn't show up.

 

It wasn't the parents.

If you would read it again, you'd see that.

 

On the flip side, I got a call from local U AD asking how the presser they sent out Thursday saying that Fan Day was Saturday, Aug. 6. Problem was, our reporter dropped the "Aug. 6" part of the info went he sent it to us. They weren't thrilled that we ran that info saying it was today.

 

No, we don't have problems with the high schools we cover - though in most parts of Canada they don't sell programs or anything for high schools. This is more so grade schools news side for features and photos in a smaller centre... and again, the board is on our side on this one.

Not attending and not publishing certainly are alternatives we have mentioned when we had problems earlier.

 

See, at one point I would have agreed that directly contacting an athlete, especially online, would be creepy, but enough coaches in my area have just given my an athlete's home phone number when I ask if I can talk to so-and-so that it's not even something I worry about any more. They keep me on such a short leash with my hours (can't go over 35 in a week, still need to have two bylines a day and put an entire section together on my own) that phone interviews are the only way I can even do a section. Now if I have to get ahold of an athlete, instead of popping over to practice, I send them a msg on fb or twitter from the sports dep't account saying "give me a call." It works and I haven't had parents or coaches upset by it.

 

I work with KY.

He identified himself fully in the facebook message. Sent the same message to the parents too (one of the girls in question, her dad sends us photos from CC meets). The parents weren't the ones with the problem.

It was the COACH. Who refuses to give us her home number, cell number or personal email. Her coach doesn't have facebook or twitter. She says she only checks her school email at school (and school wasn't in session at the time of the FB message).

So when you can't get ahold of the coach, you go to the kids (who have FB'd us before wanting to know how to buy photos, know a link to a story, etc.). These were kids who we've dealt with before. These were NOT kids or parents who we haven't dealt with before. I rarely cover cross country and even I've interview the kids in question and chatted with their parents at races.

Again, it was a COACH who got ticked off ... a coach who makes it hard for anyone in our department (even the sports ed) to get ahold of her.

While KY had CC kids to deal with, I was responsible for the boys' soccer and girls' soccer shoots . In a span of an hour after we decided which kids from which teams to invite, I facebooked 10 kids and had "I'll be there" responses from nine of them (mainly because a lot of kids have FB messages relayed to their phone in text form or have an FB app).

Hard to be that efficient through regular email or playing phone tag with coaches.

Two days later, our new volleyball guy was still trying to confirm his photo kids using the phone route. Of course, the new VB guy didn't know any of the girls he was trying to reach and I imagine when he left messages, both the coaches and players were like, "Who?"

Personally, I have no problem facebooking athletes that you cover AS LONG AS you identify yourself.

 

I largely side with you based on what has been written. However, who can't you go through the athletic director. I'm guessing he'd only have to play errand boy once or twice before he got tired of the coach's Howard Hughes-like reclusiveness.

 

It's enough to make you want to talk to yourself.