Story concepts that need to die

It depends if they try to get in the pants of their athletes.

 

More than once I've had to deal with mothers of age-group athletes who called up to let me know we did a feature on their kid's summer baseball/softball/volleyball/basketball/disc golf team at some national tournament last year and the team is going back to nationals this year and it sure would be nice to have another story for the scrapbook.

 

If the kids were on a Special Olympics team, it would win an award.

 

I agree. I mean a lot of stories are cliche, like the revenge angle. But what if you get an athlete to say something stupid/controversial about the rematch?
And the athlete going home to play a game? I mean if a star player has a game in his home state, it may be cliche but don't you have to get the star's feelings on going home? I think the fans want this shit. maybe not.
If team A slugged team B last year and team B remembers the slugging ... the revenge angle has to be approached.

 

A good idea is not trying to fit a story into a "box". Let a story tell itself then find the right box to put the story in. Too often we make our story subjects adjust to what we thing the story is. On more than a few occasions I've done an interview, asked all my questions and finished with the usual "is there anything you want to add or any questions you hoped I'd ask but didn't?" and it's blown up my "expected" story and given me a much better story. Of course, coming back to the editor and explaining the deal, they want what's on the budget, at the length and by the time they expected it, if it's good, it's a bonus.

 

I'm shocked that John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman would ever say something like that.

 

I don't get what's wrong with this one. Sports is a way to escape from real life so it happens. If it's a compelling story, why shouldn't it be written? I was covering a soccer game last week and sitting next to parents from the opposing team (normally, I sit down on the end of the bleachers but since it was Labor Day, a bunch of parents were all around me) and they told me that one of the main leaders on the team was still in the ICU after being paralyzed after a car accident while driving to school and now his teammates are trying to raise money for his hospital bills, which, considering he's already had three surgeries and has been in intensive care for almost a month, are high.

As long as it's a good, compelling story, what's the big deal?

 

Those stories are rarely compelling.

 

I have to agree with Wenders. This sounds like a good story that fell into his lap. It can be done well, or it can be done poorly. That part's up to us.

 

I'd bet Wenders is young, and I'd bet the ones eagerly contributing to this list are at least in their 40s and have read thousands and thousands more stories. What seems fresh to you at 25 is formula at 45.

 

I don't know if this needs to die or if it is. But for decades, newspapers have had obits written and basically ready to go for famous national and local figures.

With the ability to gather information so quickly on the Web, do folks still do that or do you feel OK to wing it?

 

-- Back-to-school and graduation stories. My paper makes a huge deal out of both even though neither of them are newsworthy in any way, shape or form.

-- Nine times out of 10, fan reaction stories are flat-out pandering bullshit. I absolutely despise them.