Reporters as fans

I’m just laughing at the thought of someone telling a newly-minted Alabama or Ohio State grad who hired in as a preps writer they couldn’t root for the Tide or Buckeyes in their spare time in the year 2022.

“Please stop doing the thing that your entire identity revolves around for this job that pays $12 an hour with shitty insurance.”

A preps writer? Keep it off social media and your writing, but this industry is too shitty at this point to start shearing off the things you love.

I was the weirdo in Ohio because I was a preps writer who didn’t root for Ohio State football.

 

I think you can root for something while also being objective about who and what they are.
Anyone who has read my posts here on Pitt football knows that (1) I want them to win (2) I'm a helluva' lot more critical of them than any rival school's fan could ever be. Hell, I'm heading to Atlantic City this weekend to cash the bet I made AGAINST them in the Western Michigan game. How ya' like that for objectivity?
It's the ones who pledge blind loyalty to a team that are the real problem, and there seem to be a ton of those on college beats.

 

It's OK to be a fan. Depending on the job, being a drooling fan on social media might be a bad look. Are you a preps reporter rooting for a pro team? Or are you an editor rooting for a local team? In general, I would be careful. Some fans, perhaps the silly minority, see your fandom as proof all media hates their team.

 

Thankfully, I've never worked in a newsroom where wearing sports gear to work would be deemed appropriate attire. Honestly, if you're a professional you should dress like a professional. You don't know who you're going to meet or come across on a given day when you work for a news org.

 

There was an infamous thread here years ago about a Pittsburgh sports writer who was wearing PSU clothing to cover Pitt, perhaps as a protest to being moved onto the beat.

 

Can I like this +100 times?

 

He’s not the Rams beat writer, for chrissakes. He probably doesn’t even edit Rams stories. I don’t have a problem with this at all; those who do need to lighten up.

 

Pick on harmless local newspaper lifers like this but give the hockey writers at The Athletic a free pass…

 

There is no provincialism like provincialism in the hockey playoffs. Holy shit. Everyone turns into a shill for the local team.

 

I want to argue it, BYH … but I’m not sure I can. On one hand, it unifies an otherwise divided manic Division I market, which the NHL organization shrewdly markets to remind them that for all the schools, there’s but one hockey team in said area. OTOH, there are so few manic hockey fans that they’re still a fractional minority.

 

Carolina (boooo fuck Karmanos foreverrrrrr) I get, to some degree. And they've done a great job branding themselves as the rebellious new kids on the block on social media. And there is some tongue-in-cheek WWE-esque theatre to some of it...the Islanders-Bruins series last year was filled with lots of winking jabs between writers on both sides. But there was none of that from one specific Penguins beat writer last year, who spent the elimination game on Long Island declaring what a shithole the area is and how glad he was he didn't live here and how the Island at least had this going for them and nothing else. Just an awful look.