Working in the media, you learn early on to wear the thick skin. If you can't, move on to another career. With that being said, any one of my media brethren will tell you that certain things, or certain fans can easily get under your skin.
In the grand scheme of things, these are very trivial nuggets when looking back on it. Still, it takes just one piece of criticism to look back on your work, and make an educated decision on whether or not that criticism was warranted, or was completely off base.
Someone telling you how to do your job, or pointing out mistakes can be both beneficial and irritating. We all want to be right, do our jobs right, etc. However, at times, the mistakes we make allow us to realize what we need to do better. That's what seperates the top from the bottom, in any occupation. If you can learn from your mistakes, and weed out the idiotic cheapshots, and keep improving, you have it made. Some personalities can't deal well with criticism, and those people don't last.
Your asking yourself about now, where in the heck is he going with this, right? On to my point for the posting. Earlier this week, I checked out the General Survey that's linked on IHSSN.net. It's a quick 5 or 6 question survey, that basically asks what you would like to see on IHSSN, and what could be done differently.
Two different surveys were filled out late in March, that irritated me. Was it something that I had lacked in coverage with the website, or a mistake made? No and no. IHSSN posted baseball and softball previews. Unfortunately, I can not get to the entire state, as I was basically writing all of the previews myself (one man, one state, 700 schools....you get the picture). Also, it is extremely hard for me to keep tabs on teams from around the state, especially since I am pretty handcuffed going to baseball and softball games, since they begin at 4:30 weekdays (I have a full-time job).
Anyways, on to the point of criticism. One of the surveys filled out used the F-word. No, not that F-word, but another word beginning with that letter, that in my vocabulary in my profession is just as bad....Favortism.
The response to the question, "What would you like to see on the Illinois High School Sports Network?", was the following: "less favortism and don't sell kids short of posting the accomplishments of all rather than just a few."
I wish this responder had listed an email address, so I could respond, but none was filled out in the survey. First off, I never, ever favor any one team. Even during games I am broadcasting for my home radio stations. Do I get more excited for one team over another in those games, sure, I have to play to my main audience and to who is paying the bills, but I never favor them. This is my job, I am not a fan of any high school over another.
Not only that, I am not even sure where the city is located, in which this respondant was reading from. Therefore, how could I favor some players over others, personally? Add to the fact, that when dealing with writing these previews, nearly all of the information comes from the coaches. The more a coach can give me in their questionaires, the more in-depth I can write. Another respondent (same day, same IP address), gave me the "facts" on someone I slighted in that same preview. Again, I am not privy to this information unless a coach adds it to the questionaire.
Now, if someone came to me with a complaint about me favoring the sport of basketball over wrestling, or another winter sport....they would be absolutely correct. I apologize to other winter athletics programs, since I am fully in basketball mode. What I will strive to do next school year, is find volunteers to cover wrestling and other sports, since I do not have the time myself to cover other sports.
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