Covering prep sports - with a child on the team

Mark, may I suggest the forums at sportsjournalistswhocovertheirkidsgames.com? I'm sure the officiating threads are lively, if sometimes aggrevating.

 

Your entire argument rests on the premise that proving similar behavior in another endeavor wrong somehow justifies said behavior in your field. I agree with you that it is far, far, far less than ideal for a coach to coach own kid(s). How does that get me to the conclusion that it is OK for a reporter to cover his own kid(s)?

 

It doesn't. He's not smart. He doesn't get it.

 

I never said that it did.

 

With my eldest daughter (the cheerleader), I was given the main local high school home games so I could see her a bit cheering. Not quite the same, but I was able to see her cheer about 50 percent of her games.

As for the future ... well, I don't have a crystal ball so I can't say what I would do. We're talking five years still. If you want an answer, I would say I would get a different job.

 

How long did it take you to find them again?

 

When it's a ONE-person staff, there may not be any way out of this kind of thing.

But when there is more than one person available to cover games, the solution is simple: the other person covers your kid's game, and you cover something else.

When circumstances dictate you MUST cover your kid's game I would go by the following rules:

1) Your kid is never quoted. Never featured in a picture.

2) The coach is never directly asked to comment on your kid's play.

3) Your kid's involvement in the game is limited to sheer stats, and ONLY if he leads the team in particular categories ("Stanley Starman Jr. scored 12 points to lead the Schmucks"). Play-by-play description is limited to bare-bones accounting if he makes a play decisive in the outcome of the game ("Stanley Starman Jr. hit a 12-foot jumper to give the Schmucks a 38-37 lead with three seconds to play"). No elaboration.

Talk about the other kids. Don't give anybody an opportunity to say you're pounding the drums for your own kid.

Explain to your kid that it's a tradeoff: if you cover the games at all, it means he gets no ink.

But better yet, avoid it if at all possible.

 

I notice the OP hasn't been back around. Guess the got the pat on the back he was looking for and scrammed.

 

As I have stated many times on this thread, he shouldn't be covering his kid, however, if he does, I disagree with your three points entirely.

Those three points would make this guy even more unprofessional, because they still give the kid special treatment, albeit in the opposite way. That's as irresponsible as if he was propping the kid up.

If the kid hits three home runs, the reporter sure as hell better quote the kid, quote the coach about the kid and get a photo of the kid. That's the story and if you're not telling the story for any reason, you're not doing your job.

All of this could be completely avoided, of course, if he just didn't cover his kid. Oh well.

 

Eh, just tell the kid he/she isn't playing. Problem solved.

 

There should be time as the kid is growing up to address this and come up with a solution before it becomes an issue. It's not like you're going to wake up one day and all of a sudden realize your kid is the starting QB on the varsity football team and there's no way out other than to cover the team/ignore him or whatever. If the kid appears to have some talent when he's in 7th grade or 8th grade or a freshman, that's a good time to visit with the publisher/editor and try to work something out to get a stringer or another staffer (even if it's a news-sider) up to speed by then.

It may not be easy or ideal, but it can be done. Even at a one-person shop. It just takes people sensible enough to realize there needs to be something different done, and not so willing to just throw up their hands and say, "Oh well, no other options."

What happens at the Podunk Gazette if the news-side reporter in the one-person news department has a son arrested for a triple homicide? Does Dad write that story?

 

Good question. I have no idea how they would handle that.