Front Sight...

[DVC247]

I've been watching this thread and debating whether or not I should wade in and take a few arrows, but here goes....

I'm the guy who wrote up the LPR Nationals this year. While USPSA may have a lot of money (I don't know), Front Sight doesn't. It is a membership magazine with a skeleton crew and is dependent upon members to write for it (and pays just enough for articles to pay off match fees, usually). I did not know I was writing up the Nationals until I was in Tulsa getting ready to shoot, and I was happy to do it, and hope I get to do it again (although it really screws up your match focus). Someone else took all the pictures (Roger Maier), and I saw him once during the match, as I was rather busy. Especially considering you don't know who is going to win what, talking to them or getting pictures of them during the match can be problematic, and I went home the next day (again, skeleton crew, shoestring budget). Roger had double duty during the O/L10 match, having the responsibility both for the photos and the text. And which pictures get printed, and what in your article gets edited out, is up to someone else entirely.

I have written up numerous Area and charity matches for Front Sight over the years. I have learned that you can't make everybody happy. In my match write-ups I always mention who won what division, describe some of the stages, mention sponsors, and add in some interesting anecdotes, with several specific goals: to tell people what happened and make them wish they'd been there, but first and foremost MAKE THE MATCH WRITE-UP INTERESTING ENOUGH THAT PEOPLE WILL ACTUALLY READ THE ARTICLE. THAT IS THE #1 PURPOSE OF ANY ARTICLE! Trust me, that ain't that common when it comes to match write-ups. Mentioning everyone who won every division, category, class, etc would make them very happy, but make the article nearly unreadable once you include stage descriptions and the mandatory page after page of RO photos. As a male who has spent decades shooting in Limited and Production, I tended to focus on that in the article. In the future I will make more of an effort to cover the non-males and the masochists shooting revolvers.

As a helpful hint to produce the best photos possible for an article, here is what I we did this year for the Area 5 and MI State. I wrote the articles, and people running the match took the pictures as they were there all day every day. They gave all the pictures to me, and I selected the best dozen or so to submit to Front Sight, as I know what they want. Again, shoestring budget, skeleton crew, FS doesn't have the time or energy to go looking for photos, and photos not accompanied by articles are handicapped. This way both article and pics come together. Perhaps make an announcement at the shooter's meeting, telling anyone who gets a killer photo to send it to whoever is writing up the match, will raise the quality of pics in OUR magazine.

[BritinUSA]

Thanks for the info... The problem with the coverage of Nationals (not just about the Ladies Squad) was the lack of people who do the work. I don't think it's possible for one person to cover a competition as large and complex as our Nationals. Robin's idea of organising a group of people to cover different aspects of the match is a good one.

I think this thread is part of a constructive process to improve our sport through the promotion of our National champions in Front Sight. I am confident that there will be more help than is needed at the next championship.

Thanks for taking the time to write the article on LPR, I hope that you have not seen any of this as a criticism of your work, it was not intended as such. The article was great, we just need more of the same and that's going to take more volunteers.

[Carmoney]

In the future I will make more of an effort to cover . . . the masochists shooting revolvers.

OK, I have to admit, this line made me laugh!

[pskys2]

Front Sight has always been open to members stories, heck I've had several on Revolver Matches published.

Maybe all the R of the LPR Nats group could get together and get a story together next year. Get someone to get some good pics and pool the stories and submit it.

Could be interesting.

PS I enjoy all the articles in FS, now where is my chain??? I need to practice a bit.

[Viggen]

There are four subcategories. It wouldn't hurt to have a photo of the High Military, High Law Enforcement and High Junior as well as the High Lady. I'm sure someone will take a photo of the single National Champion at each match.

That would be nice. But before they cover all the categories, they need to make sure there is decent coverage for all the divisions first.

Mike, I pretty much agree with that too. My subtle point unless I'm completely mistaken was that USPSA only recognizes one Champion per match. That's all I see on the USPSA results pages. The only time I see high whatever converted in to champion status is on personal and corporate webpages.

Yeah, but I'm not talking about classes (GM/M/A/B/C/D), I'm talking about divisions (O, L, L10, P, R, SS). Divisions deserve coverage before classes, and before categories.

As many of you have probably figured out, I'm specifically referring to the way Revolver division has received short shrift in major match coverage, particularly this past year when we were mentioned only in passing in a long and detailed article about the L/P/R Nationals.

I'm with Mike on this one. They have to up their coverage of the Divisions, all Divisions.

Really the biggest thing is if a high performing shooter, any Division or even category, is not on the Super Squad. Be off a Super Squad and from a print standpoint you were barely there.

[pjb45]

Who is "They"?

[BritinUSA]

Thanks for the info... The problem with the coverage of Nationals (not just about the Ladies Squad) was the lack of people who do the work. I don't think it's possible for one person to cover a competition as large and complex as our Nationals. Robin's idea of organising a group of people to cover different aspects of the match is a good one.

With the Nationals paperwork now starting to filter out, I think we need to start organising some coverage of this years Nationals at Nevada. As we need to indicate on our applications where and with whom we wish to be squadded, perhaps now is the time to gather some commitment from some of us to cover the event.

The way I see it, there are several catagories that need to be covered. If we can provide photos and articles to the Front Sight staff then I am sure we can address the concerns that are covered in this topic. Hopefully Robin will be buried under a mountain of stunning photo's and fluid prose.

• Men's Open
  
• Men's Limited/L10
  
• Men's Production
  
• Revolver
  
• Ladies Open
  
• Ladies Limited/L10
  
• Ladies Production
  
• Junior categories
  
• Senior Categories
  

So who's up for it... You will need to request that you are either on one of the top squads or get on a schedule that is opposite the squad that you want to follow, ie. they shoot afternoon and you shoot morning.

Any thoughts, volunteers, did I miss a category ?

[abn-rgr]

You missed Military and Law Enforcememnt category.

[BritinUSA]

I sent my paperwork in for the Open Nationals with a request to get squadded on a schedule opposite the Ladies Super Squad. I'm going to try and write up an article for Front Sight and get some photos too. I've for a remote control system on order so I can take some uprange shots.

Hopefully others will step up to cover the other categories/divisions so that we can give the editors plenty of choices for publication.