Internships

Hello all! I'm in the process of beginning to search for internships in the near future. I have already emailed a few minor league baseball teams to see what teams offered writing/media internships. I was hoping I could get a few suggestions to as to where I should look. I am a sports journalism major (print emphasis for now) and it needs to be writing based in order to get credit for the completing the internship. Any information and help would be greatly appreciated!

 

Where in the country are you? The internship market is different depending on your location. I'd love to help you out.

 

Corey:

Pick wisely. Find an internship that gives you the chance to get hands-on experience. (My mistake years ago was taking the first thing offered to me, rather than shopping around.) Don't worry so much about which one pays more, because the experience and contacts are far more valuable in the long run than whatever pay you get.

Most all major and minor league teams have internship positions available. For them, it's a way to get cheap labor. For you, it's a way to get experience, see what it's like and make contacts.

If you want to go the baseball route, check out Professional Baseball Employment Opportunities. It's sort of a clearing house for baseball jobs from all over the USA and Canada. They have a big job fair at the MLB winter meetings each year and a lot of jobs get filled there. For a small fee, you can get your resume in a database. Then follow up with individual letters and phone calls. If the winter meetings are anywhere remotely close to you, it might be worth the investment to attend. But do your prep work first.

You can also find openings for teams from all sports at teamworkline.com. Probably worth your time to submit a resume there as well and check back regularly for new postings.

 

I am at Marshall University in Huntington, WV. Forgot to add in the original post.

 

Corey,

I work in professional baseball and a lot of the teams will hire between October and January. I would say your best bet is to pick 30 teams that you would like to work for and start trying to build relationships now with each of them, so when you need that internship you won't just be another name. Try to come up with something you can do to bring value to those organizations.

You probably already know this, but there are a lot of jobs secured at the Baseball Winter Meeting each year in December. This year it's in Orlando and I believe it's in Nashville in December 2015, which is closer for you. If you're wondering about 2014 they are in San Diego.

Switching gears a little bit. Also, I wanted to get the perspective from the forum on getting content writers for a couple of my websites.

I want to provide an experience that is beneficial to the writers, with the big drawback being I can't pay them.

As a writer what will they want out of a non paid experience to make it worth it for them?

Here are some ways I hope to be able to help already.

Both websites have a good size platform for the writers to get exposure
10,000 twitter followers coincidentally for each site
one of the sites is a sports industry website with a focus on getting a job in sports
other site is college fan base site with news stories for the basketball and football teams

 

Clips, clips, clips. To a youngster starting out, that's more valuable than the cash. Certainly was to me. Of course, in my era, there weren't a million and one websites out there, so being able to say you had been published --- even as a stringer or on a student newspaper --- was more exclusive in those days.

 

You need to evaluate and find out the right estimation for your career look for opportunities in an internship that would help you out in leading a esteemed path to your career !!

 

Try and find a niche. How tied in are you to Thundering Herd sports? Start a blog that's all Marshall all the time. Anyone can start "Joe'sAwesomeNFL.com." What makes you stand out. If you can do that then internships will be intrigued. Instead of being some other kid with an earnest recommendation letter and some clips on the school paper you'll be unique.

Also, keep up with as many sports as you can because weird things might happen. I got an internship at a major cable sports channel in Boston because I picked Kenneth Faried's Morehead State to beat Louisville in the NCAA tournament. The hiring producer said he remembered that (also because he didn't believe me until I name dropped Faried) and it helped me get the job. You never know what's going to be the deal maker or deal breaker.

 

If you are an ethnic minority and/or speak multiple languages and already have some good clips, apply for internships and trainee programs at major metros.

Seriously, it will jump-start your career like little else and put you on a faster track than you might ever get on otherwise.

 

Appreciate all the responses! If anyone has any suggestions as far any specific places such as newspapers, organizations, etc. that usually have internships that I should consider contacting let me know on this thread or PM if you'd rather do it that way. Again thanks for the helpful tips and suggestions already given!

 

I've already seen a few postings for 2014 summer internships. Some of the bigger places like to get their people selected by March when possible.

I know MLB.com has posted internship positions here in past years, so you might want to check with them. One person who did one had some good things to say about it. If you want to cover major leagues in a few years, that might be a better route than going to a small-time daily. (Wish they had had such a thing back when I was in school.)

 

If you're looking to intern for a specific team or organization, the best place to go is www.teamworkonline.com. Just about every major league and minor league sport in the country posts job and internship openings through this site. It's free to create a profile and upload your resume.

As for newspapers, the Virginian-Pilot based out of Norfolk, Va. has already posted for its summer 2014 and winter-spring sports reporting internship. Here's the link for more info: http://www.journalismjobs.com/Job_Listing.cfm?JobID=1446745 I went to school in that area, and it's the largest paper in the state outside of the Washington Post with their NoVa editions. Hampton Roads is the largest metropolitan area in the country without a major professional sports franchise. The total population of all seven cities is about 1.2 million I believe.

It's a great area, Virginia Beach is 30ish minutes from downtown Norfolk. With the sports writing internship being in the winter, my guess is you'd probably get some experience covering the Norfolk Admirals (AHL affiliate of the Anaheim Ducks) and the Norfolk Tides near the end. The Tides are the AAA affiliate of the Orioles, along with some high school and copy editing stuff.

Going to papers' websites or corporate sites will usually tell you whether they're looking for interns right now. Also it doesn't hurt to email the sports editors themselves if you don't see a listing on the site. They would probably know better than anyone whether they've got openings for interns.

Hope this helps.