It's Monday morning and I need a support group

Typing in 12 names and a cutline shouldn't take more than three minutes, so instead of browsing ESPN or SJ, do that instead.

 

This sells papers.

I don't buy that line, but that's why we do it.

 

I seriously considered dropping photos too, but the readers seem to love them and are generally good about turning them in only for significant wins, unlike some mentioned in previous posts. But the biggest reason is that I don't want the fact that I stopped them to be the third paragraph of my obituary!

 

We get about 6-10 weekly reports on youth soccer (U-16, U-15, U-14, etc.) that I compile into our "Soccer Report". At 2-3 graphs each, that takes a substantial amount of space right there. Then we get John Doe finishing 97th in some triathlon someplace, the local golf club's weekly event (which involves A LOT of readers), bowling league scores and notices of upcoming events.

Trying to make it into an adult participatory sports page and not exclusively kiddos.

 

And besides, you don't have to put in the kids according to the photo. You can just put in "Members of the team are ..." with a list, instead of, "From left to right, Johnny Bumfuck, Timmy Assmunch, etc."

 

I will give $5 to the first editor who includes the names Johnny Bumfuck and Timmy Assmunch in a cutline.

 

This pretty much explains my existence.

 

You know what? Just run it.

We have a section for teams. Anyone can submit a team photo. It's actually quite popular.

 

^ It's not news. Who gives a damn besides these parents? More people would rather see a local story with some actual relevence. Let's just drop the name Podunk Tribune newspaper and rename it Podunk Tribune scrapbook.

 

Why have reporters and editors if you run a page full of this crap? The general readership does not care about the beer league team or the 10-year-old swimmers who finished 123rd at the state meet.

 

Therein lies the dilemma. You can't run every damn team in the circulation area or you'll never have space for anything else.

I got a photo last week with the names of like 16 kids and also "not pictured". I left that much out. Parent asked me why. I told them "the purpose of a cutline is to identify the persons in the photo, not those who are not in the photo".

 

The thing about it is, if you work at a small, one-man shop/ community paper like I do, it takes up space. Lots of space. Ad that's always a good thing, especially on days where nothing's scheduled or days where there's rain-outs or snow-outs.

I can understand why Big Metro Times isn't going to run the Eastern Suburb Community League Under-8 T-Ball Champion photo, but people in small towns really do eat this shit up.