Quick parent rant

I didn't read all the way to the end of this post, but something today is really eating at me, so I'll go ahead and rant.

Ok, I'm sports ed at two weeklies, two mid-sized high schools. Both have at least competent football teams, and one is very good. Before I started, they covered everything via two stringers, one for each school. When I started, they canned one, and left me in charge of the other one. Well, he had been covering the Racingtown Ballbusters for a year already, so I left him on the beat. I did all over the coverage for the Tittyville Stripers, and caught some Ballbusters action whenever I could.

Anyway, my Ballbuster guy eventually left, so I have a new stringer this fall and well ... I didn't have much say in who we picked and we got a guy who works his ass off and is just a great kid willing to learn, but has little to no idea how to write a sports story or even how sports work. I've been busting my ass to teach him, and to his credit, he learns fast, but nevertheless, not fast enough and I have to rewrite one in every three stories or so. And it has hurt our coverage, which doesn't really matter anywhere but the football team. We still do two stories a week, a gamer and a precede, and he pretty much just writes what I tell him. He's coming along in both areas, but the gamers are still pretty much "Jonny scored. Then Billy scored. Then Tom scored. Then the game was over. 'We need to work harder,' coach Snort said." Precedes are pretty much "This weeks opponent is 3-1. Coach Snort is worried about his offense."

ANYWAY, I do what I can. Work hard to fix what I can, but really, there's only so much I can do as every Friday, I'm tied up with the Strippers, and Mon-Wed I'm hammering out my own stories, rewriting his and laying out pages for both papers, thus no time to write my own features or do massive work for him.

I'll also throw in that we've worried about this problem a lot. We've just gotten the gamers/precedes to the point where they're acceptable ... boring and by the book, but acceptable. We also take photos, but the guy was REALLY bad at that, so we freelance that now, all to provide better coverage.

What thanks do we get? A letter signed by all the senior parents sitting on my desk, saying they're mad that we don't inlcude the names of people that block, or people that make tackles or every sack or interception. Of course we make sure the big tackles/sacks/interceptions get in. AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG. Stupid assholes. That's what we get for busting ass. A letter about not writing about the left guard. Fan-fucking-tastic. Football is easily the biggest story every week, so we always run it as the centerpiece but DAMN I really really want to run it on about 10B this week with one tiny photo. Stupid asses. They think they've seen shitty coverage. Just wait.

Anyway ... I hope no one actually read all that. I'm sure it got pretty boring and I know there are a lot of stories about crazier parents than this, and heck, we're even a little at fault. But still, it pisses me off and now I feel much better.

Does anyone actually have any advice? Anyone have to deal with somethign like this, training a new guy who cant' do crap? I mean, if I leave my games to cover his, then we'll still have one crappy paper and one good one ...

 

Thanks Baemon :-D Krusty shilling the Canyonero is easily one of my favorite Simpsons moments.

And Pilot, that's a tough one. I got into sports journalism because I love sports, so being able to pick out strategies during a game and such is a byproduct of that. Maybe give him football tapes or assign him to watch games to get accustomed to the nuances. Dunno if that'll do anything or not, but it might be worth a shot.

 

Let me be clear by saying I'm not a sports editor, so take my advice with a grain of salt.
But if I got a letter like that, I'll call the coach and/or AD and/or principal and/or superintendant and explain to them what happened. I'd explain why the parents were wrong and I'd make it clear that I was under no obligation to cover the team at all.
Now, I wouldn't go into the meetings with an attitude, but I would remind them that pissing off the person who makes the coverage decisions is probably not the wisest idea.
I bet you'll find most of the people in power are sympathetic. We had one AD from a school that bitches even when it gets the best coverage in our area say, 'Hey, I'm sorry. But remember, you all are dealing with these people this weekend. I deal with them year-round.'

 

Yesterday I got the "Why don't you cover middle school sports?" e-mail.
I replied with the standard "We have our hands full just covering all the high school varsity teams and if we covered one middle school team we'd have to cover all of them, plus JV and freshman teams." response.

 

I'd print the letter, then keep plugging away as always, making changes when I could, not really worrying about it when I can't make it any better. Football will be over soon.

 

I love these, especially now that the hammer has dropped and my paper is totally cutting out sports at the end of football season.

Think they got crummy coverage, or only high school coverage in the past? Well think again shitheads in My Fair Suburbia. Soon you'll get no sports coverage, unless Hometown High or Podunk High wins the state championship in any of the big four sports. Fat chance that happens this year in football or basketball. Might happen in baseball, but nobody will be reading the paper by spring. I love it!

But back on topic, when I get these, I usually call the person if it's a phone call, or respond via email if that's the way they're bitching, and then I explain in great detail how newspapers make money, and editorial vs. ad content. That shuts them the hell up, or they say "I thought this was a public service....I had no idea newspapers are a business...."

 

A few years ago, somebody sent in a photo of a Pop Warner cheerleading team that won a national championship. The problem was, the lighting was so bad, you couldn't see any of the kids' faces. So you've got the ultimate no-win situation, run the crappy photo and have parents complain about how they couldn't see their kids' faces or not run the photo and have people complain about you not running the photo. Well, I guess if the only people who care about the photo know who's in it, maybe it doesn't matter.
One person called and asked why he didn't see the photo in the paper and I explained why and he said another paper had the photo and I could get it from that SE (It was the guy at the desk next to me and he said he couldn't see the kids' faces but ran it anyway).
The caller finished by saying "I pay a lot of taxes in this community."
Not sure what that has to do with the price of tea in China...

 

I'd have said, "big whoop, I do too and I don't get paid squat."

 

what the hell did that last sentence have to do with anything?

and sartrean, it sucks they cut sports at your paper. good luck in whatever you decide to do.

 

It's a figure of speech.

 

damn guys, stop disappointing me.

back when i used to get shit like that, i'd ask myself two simple questions: who are the least intelligent people in the newsroom, and who gives two shits about quality?

i'd then rise from my desk with pic in hand and stroll directly to the folks who put together the community section while explaining -- for the bazillionth time -- my policy of how any kind of cheerleading or dance wasn't a sport.

by the time i left that place, i no longer explained. instead it was "hey whatsyourname, this (crappy kiddie cheerleading photo) was mistakenly dropped off at my desk. here you go."

horseshit off petty's desk and on someone else's.

 

They must clamor for you come Secret Santa time...