Oh, please let me vent….
June 07, 2008
I have discovered Ronnie Gilley and myself have similar personalities.
Get it all out there. Tell somebody how you feel, express yourself to them directly, then get on with what you got to do.
Twice this week Ronnie has been pissed at me .... ok, not really pissed .... but he has chatted with me about coverage. Today the issue is the ticket story on today’s front page of the Eagle. Ronnie has not seen today’s paper, mind you, but is going on what he has been told. And people have been telling him that I am killing him, hammering him on the front page.
As a news reporter, I work for a news organization whose goal it is to report. When I find an issue that people complain about, or they jump up and down about ... that dear readers, is news. Yesterday, besides the heat, there was an issue, a general grumbling about having to buy drink and beverage tickets. In other words, a beer is 5 tickets, or $3.13. Vendors don’t take cash. They take tickets.
I quoted people complaining. I quoted Billy Graham talking about it. I quoted people who said, what’s the big deal, but perhaps because the headline read “Ticket system causes stir,” WHICH IS ACCURATE, then I am giving negative publicity.
Ronnie and I went back to his motor home and talked about it.
We both raised our voices, but we both talk loud anyway. It was intense. But that is a NICE motor home.
“Have you seen the blog? Have you read the stories?” I asked.
No. He’s been pretty busy, uh, putting on the event of the year down here in Coffee County which will most likely draw 100,000 people. He and many of his right-hand people are surviving on less than 4 hours of sleep each night. Who has time to look at the paper or go online.
Anyway, we talked it out and got over it. I shared with him my question of the day, provided by Debbie T. from Wiregrass Live: On a scale of 1-10, rate BamaJam. The lowest score so far, an 8. Second question, how likely are you to come back next year? The lowest score so far, a 9.5.
We high-fived it a few times as I congratulated him on the success. And this is it, folks. A successful festival. And we parted intact—as reporter and developer. Not friends but in our separate roles that must not be crossed. We are interviewer and successful businessman who is interviewed.
To maintain that status, the Eagle news staff does not accept free tickets to BamaJam. We buy our own.
I’m sorry I have to vent so on this, but its countless, the number of times someone says, well, the story just “makes it sound like, blah, blah, blah.” Key words here would be “makes it sound like.” Read the words, please, and don’t read anything else. The facts are there.
And it is never a journalist’s job to take a personal interest in many things. I am the reporter, writing what I see and recording what people tell me. That’s all I can do, folks.
Now get your butts out here tonight! This is THE event of the year, I tell you!!!
Cya
