• The Green Phone was created so the fans could voice their
opinions. Give us a call and let us know what’s on your mind.
Caller 1: Uh, roast beef. And I like pastrami, double pastrami
Carl’s Jr
… where’s the beef?
• The Green Phone was created so the fans could voice their opinions. Give us a call and let us know what’s on your mind.
Caller 1: Uh, roast beef. And I like pastrami, double pastrami Carl’s Jr … where’s the beef?
Green Phone: We like roast beef too, Caller 1. And thanks for the message that’s the least scathing in this fiery edition of Green Phone.
Caller 2: You guys have got to be kidding me. This is the best that you can do covering the wrestling team after they were only the third team in history to win three CCS titles and you guys put them in as a little blurb above the girls’ basketball team that’s making it to the playoffs? They haven’t even won the CCS. These guys actually won the CCS. Next year they have a opportunity to become one of only two teams in the history of the Central Coast Section to win four titles and this the best coverage that you guys can give them? No pictures, no coverage … you guys have got to be kidding. You are giving the wrestling team no respect for the hard work and time that they put in. … I really am disappointed with the Dispatch for their coverage of the wrestling team this season.
Green Phone: Caller 2, you’re not alone in being upset with our coverage of the wrestling. Read on …
Caller 3: I’m a little concerned about the lack of coverage for the wrestling program at Gilroy High School this past weekend. How can you not completely put this on the front page, three-times CCS champions? I mean, it’s walking on sacred ground now, that program. And here I see two big color pictures of girls’ basketball quarterfinals and I only see headshots of the wrestlers. Very unfair coverage all year.
Green Phone: Well, Callers 2 and 3, we’re certainly not happy that you feel the way you do. For starters, the Dispatch has a reporter and photographer at the wrestling State Championships starting today in Bakersfield. We’ll be giving plenty of coverage to the Mustang wrestlers at the tournament. As for the CCS Finals at Overfelt this past weekend – unfortunately we didn’t get any good action pictures of the four champions from Gilroy. Callers, you’re certainly right to get down on us about that, and we’ve taken steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
On Monday, we made an editorial decision to put the wrestling story “above the fold” – it was quite a bit more than a “blurb” – with the biggest headline. This was our attempt to tell readers that the wrestling story was the most important one in that day’s edition of the paper, despite the lack of pictures.
One last note on the girls’ basketball story (the one with the visibly smaller headline, “below the fold”). Let it be known that the crowd cheering on the girls in the playoffs at Leland High Saturday night packed a sold-out gymnasium, so it’s not like wrestling was competing for front page space with miniature golf or anything. The girls were a big story, too. The Gavilan softball team, which won its home tournament for the first time Sunday, was relegated to a small story at the bottom of the page, because at the end of the day, we only have so much space and lots of important events to cover each day. Saturday just happened to be a day when so much sports was going on that space was even more at a premium on Tuesday.
Caller 6: Since when has poker become a sport? Do you read your own newspaper? You were supposed to do a story on Gavilan baseball’s opener in Thursday’s paper.
Green Phone: Caller 6, we apologize for not running the Gavilan baseball preview on Thursday. It’s in today’s paper, though, so hope that’s okay. As for poker not being a sport … well, we run lots of stories on hiking and pictures of fishing, and nobody seems to complain about those.
