Hiring standards for stringers for high school sports

I've had some awesome high school interns/part-timers (both writers and photogs) in my TV & newspaper career. Also some stinkers.

My favorite intern was a kid who told me when he was 16 or 17 that his email address was "Number1Umpire@..." and he was going to be a professional MLB ump. He was a pretty good writer and I think he worked at our paper on and off as an intern and part-timer while in college as well.

And to anyone who knows him ... none of us are shocked that Adam Hamari has been a major league ump for the last 10 years.

 

I started at age 14 at a weekly, but had a very patient editor.

 

Yep. Many of those freelancers, including me, became full timers. Some became editors at our and other papers. Some became beat writers at major metros. One I found is a group publisher. And a couple never could write or get the facts straight and quickly disappeared. Generally, we could pick ‘em.

 

I covered my first few high school football games when I was in high school. I then continued stringing while at college, and then landed a non-sports reporting job at that paper when I graduated.

 

I get what most people here are saying, but in some ways I feel like this thread encompasses why this industry is dying off. Holding freelancers to certain expectations not only doesn't bring in as much fresh blood as it possibly could, but it also wears thin on the people currently doing the work. I understand that there are some standards, but unless someone is going completely overboard in their early work, there shouldn't really be a reason to give up on someone so quickly. I look back at my writing samples from before I was hired nine years ago and I cringe. And I was a college grad who worked at my school newspaper. We're not talking anything big here, but it was experience. I started out at my first job doing desk work.

But even if you need someone to string games, don't slot them in for an 800-word gamer or even 600 words right off the bat, especially with a 60-minute turnaround. You're only doing yourself a disservice. Start 'em off at 300 words and see what they give you for the first few months. With practice and additional pointers, bump the expectation up another level.

 

I'm with you on that.

Writing a game capsule or short story isn't rocket science. Most people could probably do it once they have a sense of the rhythm of games and a feel for the time with regard to deadlines. Dealing with the deadlines, knowing when/if to do things based on that, and how long to spend on everything, based on access, and your own experience/comfort level with such situations, is the most difficult part of stringing. And more experience helps with all of that.

There are also ways to help someone who struggles with stringing initially: Send them to daytime games if there are any. Additional weeks of shadowing/help at games is good. After deadline, go over the editing of whatever they turned in. Suggest the idea of "covering" college/pro games, right off the TV, for practice. In the comfort of their own home, they can keep/write out/compile running stats and get a feel for work pacing as if they were actually there. This can be very helpful, especially because they will have announcers calling play by play, and, if/when needed, explaining/clarifying rules and penalties and such. It can really help in connecting the dots and keeping up with the game, particularly if there is anything they don't know, or that they miss, without the pressure of "live" games.

This makes it so that they actually do learn, instead of panic. The stat-compiling (suggest they add them up at halftime, so that that much is done, at least, at the end of the game) will have them keeping up with the game, and getting a sense of it as they go, and will give them confidence that they can, in fact, be ready and able to write a straight roundup item or a short, featurized game story afterward.

Tell them to give themselves, say, between 15 minutes and a half-hour to actually do so. If they do that, they might even get some practice editing their own stuff, and realize they need it, again, all without real, "live" pressure, and will help them improve and gain confidence, knowledge and experience at writing/stringing for the actual paper (or web site).

 

This is great.

I feel like a complete rewrite can be demoralizing to a person, especially with little to no explanation. I experienced this early on in my tenure on the design side, where my boss completely changed an inside page's layout because he didn't like what I came up with. It's not a fun feeling. I could've easily given up on learning page design after that. But I knew it was a situation where the kid was in over his head with his job and probably wouldn't be there long (and I was right). I kept practicing on my own on the side, asking others for pointers to where I'm now a lead designer at a design hub for three papers.

We've had a few stringers at my shop over the years, but not many in recent years because they're not really paying competitively. Can make more money at a fast foot place or Walmart. Not paying competitively plus high expectations for freelancers is a death wish for the job.

 

No disrespect here. But I think most of the teeth-gnashing people have written about isn’t traced back to inexperienced stringers willing to try and to learn. It’s the “Oh, yeah, taught journalism in high school for 20 years, helped out at the [big-city daily where I used to live] for a few football seasons, got this down cold, Pal” types who fail to deliver, or the guy who claimed he was better than anyone on the paper’s staff and then was too tired to file that are causing the eye rolls and bad memories and cautionary tales.

At my current shop, I’ve recently been charged with assisting a younger colleague with his writing. He wants to improve, and I’m more than happy to try to help him. Doesn’t mean, if I were still in print, I wouldn't try to vet like hell any stringer-wannabes.

 

Had a former sports editor stringing for me way back when. He covered a high school softball game and in the second graph wrote ... "Player A stroked a two-bagger in the second inning and turned the trick again in her next at-bat."
Damn fucking right I rewrote it. And then I called him and told him why.

 

Did he call the track team "thin clads" as well?

 

I've never heard of "thin clads" but I loved me some harriers references for cross-country teams back in the day. No fucking idea what it meant or where it came from but I loved throwing that on a header.

 

This is timely. Stopped on MeTV Wednesday morning while Elmer was trying to kill Bugs. Maybe something to do with rabbits?