bitter bands

You would think after a few years in the newspaper biz I'd have a thick skin. Nope, it still manages to get to me when I receive criticism from readers. Tuesday night I was assigned to shoot a stand alone feature at the 4th Annual Northeast Georgia Marching Exhibition. It is an event where 9 area high school marching bands' performances are critiqued to prepare them for an upcoming marching competition. I got there a half hour early and stayed through 3 bands. I decided to record a song so I could do an impromptu audio slideshow. I had to leave to edit those and another assignment for the next day's paper. I worked until 11:30 that night finishing up the slideshow.
Just take a look at some of the reader comments. One comment says I just plain suck, a couple say the bands were screwed out of good coverage, and another person claims they are now canceling their subscription. Because I was only able to include 3 of the 9 bands in my slideshow people viewed the paper as failing the local band community. Not only did I do a slideshow, but one of our community photographers with Spotted posted close to 300 pictures of the event. Instead of seeing what we did do it seemed people focused on what we didn't do. This is the kind of stuff that makes me want to give up and never go out of my way again. I didn't work late for fun. I worked late so that the kids I took pictures of could see them. Thanks a lot to those bitter readers of the ABH, I'll make sure to do less next time.