Honor rolls are the bane of my existence
As I've mentioned in a much earlier blog, I'm the go-to person to get honor rolls, education and military briefs published in the Morning News.Lucky me.
Because these items are published for free and when we have space available for them, we can't say when exactly they'll be published.
Here's how it works, in the case of an honor roll: a school sends us, usually by e-mail or fax, its most recent honor roll. If it's e-mailed, it gets formatted and dropped into our computer system by me that day. If it's faxed, a stringer will enter it into our computer system whenever he/she is available to do so.
Once the honor roll's in our computer system, it's ready to be published as soon as we have space available for it. This can take up to a month, but we try to publish honor rolls on a first-come, first served basis.
In the case of an education brief: a school sends us, by e-mail, fax or snail mail, news about an individual student. If it's e-mailed, it gets formatted and dropped into our computer system by me that day. If it's faxed or mailed in, a stringer will enter it into our computer system whenever he/she is available to do so.
Once the education brief's in our computer system, it's ready to be published as soon as we have space available for it. Again, this can take up to a month, but, again, we try to publish these on a first-come, first served basis.
Where it gets tricky is when a school, say for example The Citadel, sends us separate releases for each of the Pee Dee students who have been named to the honor roll. What we do then is try to put all the names together for one education brief so that each student gets equal coverage. That's only fair and right to each of the students.
Alas, we can't seem to do that with military briefs, which are e-mailed to us at random. Even then, though, we make sure military briefs follow the same format for each person depending on what he/she has accomplished so that all are treated fairly.
But that doesn't always sit well with the parents of these students and/or service members, who often call to complain that we didn't publish the names of their student's grandparents, where their student went to high school, what year their student lost his or her first tooth, etc., in the brief.
My response to those parents is always the same: buy an ad. That way, they can include all the information they want AND guarantee the date of publication.
That's usually when they either hang up on me (before cursing at me) or demand to speak to my boss -- who tells them the exact same thing.
Formatting and editing these things is as tedious as it is time-consuming. Remember, my primary focus every day is on big (and sometimes breaking) local news coverage that interests and may have a direct impact on the majority of our readers.
Understand also that we can get up to 50 honor rolls, education and military briefs a day. That's no exaggeration. And when I get them, I make sure I put them into the computer system that very day in the order they were received.
On a personal note, I was an honor roll student throughout school and I don't think I ever got my name published in the local paper for it. It never bothered me because the people who cared -- mainly my parents and grandparents -- already knew and didn't have to rely on the media to find out about my accomplishments. And, they shared news about the achievements by my brother and me when people asked about us. That was always more than good enough for me.
Posted by on 03/18 at 10:52 AM
Honor rolls are a waste of space. Who reads them anyway? My guess is parents who want to see whos child didn’t make the honor roll. I can see the college ones. They usually have a picture and a nice description of the students accomplishments.
If you want. I’ll write a letter to you complaining about honor rolls and parents who drive mini vans with those stupid “my kid is an honor roll student”.