Best journalism advice/tips you ever received

Here's a good one from a superstar in the business, George Esper, who was an AP war correspondent famous for staying during the fall of Saigon. He thought too many reporters tried to appear too much of an authority on subject matters during interviews in certain instances and would be better served acting a little naive and asking for further explanation.

 

Read this thread ...

RIP, Steve Ellis

... and don't wind up like him.

 

Pity is a very powerful force, and journalists should never be above using it.

 

I got some very simple but effective advice once: read and write.

Read the best journalism and other written works out there, understand what makes them so good and try and learn something.

Write every day - practice may not make perfect, but it'll certainly make you better.

 

Listen.

Seriously, listening is one of the hardest skills to acquire, just in life in general. People are predisposed to want to talk and ask questions but aren't always great at listening to the answers. This is obviously critical in reporting, but it's not as simple as it looks.

We've probably all been guilty of asking a question and not listening as well as we should during the answer, either because we're worried about the follow-up (a common mistake of inexperience) or we're on a frantic deadline (for me, high school football Fridays create the worst problem in this regard). I've transcribed quotes plenty of times and thought, "Damn, there was something in there that I could've had a great follow-up to, but I wasn't listening well enough." Every day, I try to be better at listening.

Even in "non-formal" interviews. If you're having a casual conversation with a player or coach, let them talk. Listen to conversations in the crowd, etc. Not necessarily eavesdropping, but you never know when you're going to hear something that gives you a thread to pull on one day. Chat up "locals" when you get out to events. There are always people, especially at the preps level, that have much more info than you do, probably because they spend their time being involved in 1 or 2 sports while you're trying to cover 58 different things.

Get to know such people, they're often a wealth of info. You should never walk into a high school gym or stadium in your coverage area and NOT chat up at least a few people/sources in the crowd who know who your are and why you're there. Not because you need to feel important, but because people want to talk to those who'll listen.

 

Also, if you're a newspaper reporter, read your own fucking paper. I cannot stress this enough.

It's shocking how many younger people come into this and don't understand that their best source on something is often to just read the paper. They'll ask me questions on things that were in the section 2 days ago, they just never read it. This includes the other sections. Maybe you'll never go out and cover the cops beat, but read what the reporters who do are writing.

If you're a copy editor, doubly important to read everything. We edit, lay out and proof our own sports section here, but plenty of times a copy editor has goofed up a prominent local sports name in a tophat or fucked up a photo or cutline for the occasional A1 sports story because he/she doesn't care for sports and doesn't think reading about local sports matters.

This infuriates me, because it's their job.

 

I'm well aware of his act. Thanks.

 

Don't wait too long to get your pizza.

 

I own you. How's Hillary?

 

This is rock solid advice. Best post in this thread.

 

Get back to what you do best--calling transgendered people mentally ill, using the word "retard," calling people "women" as an insult, hating "blogs" because you don't understand them, etc.

 

Here's another gem, even if it sounds goofy:

Take note of the closest McDonald's wherever you go. They're open late and I've found their WiFi to be extremely reliable. Plus there's a McDonald's within 10-15 minutes of even bumblefuck prep towns. If you can't get back to the office and can't find WiFi anywhere, good old McDonald's is always there.

The dollar coffees help, too.

And speaking of food and drink, if you're sitting near an AD or administrator at a game, loudly mention how hungry you are. The good ones try and provide hospitality and will almost certainly offer to get you something from the concession stand. Works almost every time.