Hiring standards for stringers for high school sports

What are your hiring standards for stringers for high school sporting events? Is a college degree required? Is a high school diploma required?

I'm asking because I want the weekly I write for to hire at least one stringer to cover the football games of the only high school we cover. I've moved to the opposite coast from the newspaper but continue to write for it, getting information for the coaches.

However, my other job, which is with a full time and with a daily outlet, is consuming more and more of my time and I want to spend less time with the weekly job. (I'd like to quit the weekly job but cannot at this time.)

Key reason I'm asking is so I can tell the publisher to lower his standards. He seems to think this requires a college degree which it obviously does not. I do not think it requires a high school diploma. I'd like to be able to tell him that the industry standard is that a high school diploma is not required.

Have you had success stories with high school students being stringers? How about horror stories?

 

Some one in management suggested using a high school student recently, I balked at that one.

College students, of course, so by definition a college degree shouldnt be a requirement to string. Hell I strung for AP while a student so they don’t require a degree.

 

"Have you had success stories with high school students being stringers? How about horror stories?"

I'll get back with you after some time to digest all that.

 

What were the reasons you balked about using a high school student?

 

"Have you had success stories with high school students being stringers? How about horror stories?"

I'll give you a success story from a daily. I'll never forget the kid.
He loved sports and loved reading. So, I turned him loose. He was good. From the get-go, just normal clean-up was needed. What I remember most is telling him, "You don't need to double-space like they taught you in typing class."
Fast-forward a few months ... he wants to learn layout. I'm reticent to say he mastered it, but the guy grew up on computers. He made it seem like a piece of cake.
I quickly considered him a bona fide colleague/professional member of the staff and afforded him the respect he earned. Hell, the kid saved my ass on deadline a few times.
He wisely chose to attend pharmaceutical school.

If you can find a youngster like that ... it's gold, man. You just want to do everything you can to help a kid like that ... personally and professionally.

Good luck. Hope you find someone similar, should you opt to go that route.

 

I fear the publisher won't allow that.

 

At my last stop, a kid with a bachelor's in english from a regionally reputable liberal arts college called and asked if we were hiring stringers. I met with him, we talked, and I sent him out on a minor assignment. If memory serves, it was a lower-level boys soccer game. The kid had played soccer. The story he filed had to be completely rewritten, which ruined my evening, because I needed the story and I needed another good stringer. Probably my fault for not asking for a writing sample, though.

 

Did he write something else for the paper or was he one and done?

 

At the daily I was at for ages, everyone in sports started as a freelancer, some in high school, some in college. You can tell if someone can do it from their first piece of copy.

 

Man, this is so true. You can help someone to a certain extent and I've seen people become marginally better writers. But for the most part, you can either do it or you can't.

 

At my last print stop, one of my tasks was to scare up dozens of community members who would provide (for free, of course) brief accounts of their high school football games. Horrible, horrible experience.

One of the most promising of these stringers was a high school student at one of the city's two big private schools. Got a great impression of her. She agreed to staff a football game ... and turned in completely unusable copy about three hours after I needed it. (ME had close ties to said private school and wasn't pleased that no account of his school's game appeared in the Saturday paper. SE, to his credit, pointed out that that's the cost of business when you rely on community-generated content.)

Regardless of education level, I'd do a trial run. Hand a candidate half a sheet full of notes, stuff that might have been gleaned from a phoner (maybe even a few notes and the agate for a game). Ask candidate to write x paragraphs based on the notes (as well as any scene-setting you need to do).

I wish you luck, because I have a sense you're really going to need it. Unless you find Liut's pharmacist's offspring.