Jumping to news

Hi, just wanted to fish for some advice.

I've been out of school for over two years now and working in sports, doing desk work and writing, but I'm looking at going to the news side. I haven't done GA work since college, so I'll probably need to start modest again in terms of paper size. I'm not sure. I'm in the Pacific Northwest right now (although it's not home), but was thinking about applying to Aberdeen, Wa. Anybody know anything about it? And has anybody gotten tired of sports and made the jump to news?

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Company: The Daily World
Position:
Openings for two reporters
Location:
Aberdeen, Washington St.
Job Status: Full-time
Salary: Not Specified
Ad Expires:
July 11, 2006
Job ID: 646053
Website: http://thedailyworld.com

Description:
The Daily World at Aberdeen has openings for two reporters. A married couple in the newsroom is moving on, leaving two positions open. The Daily World is a 14,000-circulation daily newspaper 20 miles from the Washington Coast and along the southern edge of the Olympic Peninsula. We are looking for people who write with clarity and spark and leave readers satisfied they got the full story. One of the positions is likely to involve some page design using InDesign.
The Daily World offers medical and dental benefits and a 401(K) retirement plan.

Send a cover letter, resume, writing samples and page design samples if you have them, to Managing Editor Doug Barker, Box 269, Aberdeen, WA 98520. email: dbarker@thedailyworld.com

 

Don't do it! Just kidding, while sort of. I left sports for five months, when I was at a paper on a contract basis (was covering a mat leave position in sports and when that ended, I was covered mat leaves on the news side).
Just make sure you want to leave the game for blood and guts, school board meetings and real-world politics. After five months, when the phone rang offering me my current job, I couldn't say yes fast enough.

 

True nuff. I did a stint on news side. After a month of double checking the daily body count in Iraq, I'd had enough.

 

I did a similar thing - took a transfer in the chain to go from sports to the news desk for six months. I got some good experience working nights and sifted through more than my fair share of police logs, school board stories, elections and obituaries, and worked with plenty of reporters. But when I went back to sports - and I also couldn't do it fast enough - I got a different insight on the craft. I was more detail-oriented as a reporter and had a better understanding of what the editors/department heads went through.

 

I'm on my second stint on the news-side. After the first, which I kinda had forced on me, I realized it helped a lot of my reporting skills. This trip is voluntary, and I'm learning again. I'll be back in sports some day, but these trips have been good for me.

The bigger question is how difficult to get back in sports once you shift over. That's an entirely different question, one that I have my suspicions on, but not enough personal experience to offer advice on.


EDIT: Not quite the impact for the DBV1K post that I'd hoped, but it wasn't a post pad, so I got that going for me. And now that I've got 1,000 posts, I can refer to myself in the third person, right?

 

That's funny. Because my city editors told me my years of sports reporting made me one of their better news writer ... able to give more colour to a story, instead of just giving the facts.

 

I've hit the trifecta... started in sports (which helped writing), moved to news (which helped the reporting), now in features. (Which helped my family life -- ba-zing!)


If there's anything I'd recommend to the newbies regarding this line of discussion, it's this: Do 8-10 weeks on the police beat somewhere, sometime. It'll help your fact-finding skills, your source-development tactics and your spine. Getting the family members of a murder victim to talk to you is an unfortunate (though often necessary) exercise that will enhance both your "people" skills and serve as an occasional reminder that most other stories, to hammer the ol' cliche, aren't really "life or death."

 

And as for Aberdeen...

Kurt Cobain's hometown. And if you visit, Cobain's life and (especially) death will suddenly make a whole lot more sense to you.

It's a bit gloomy.

 

Thanks for the advice.

I'm not sure if it would be a permanent switch. Most likely not. I just realized that I should learn the basics of news reporting for a bigger sports beat one day. As it stands at my place, if a coach is locked up for battery, etc., we don't touch it. It goes to the news side. I know at bigger places, I'll need to know my shit.

Although I'm originally from the South, I've grown fond of the Pacific Northwest. And Kurt Cobain? I wasn't into grunge.

 

I've gone over to the news side twice. Won't do it again.

 

If you do switch over to news, be sure to mention that every night in sports is like election night, and then ask if the editors are going to order pizza for everyone.

You'll be a smashing hit right from the start.

 

Done the news thing, not my cup of tea, however, it's a great way to learn a bunch more in the business. Do it, and if you don't like it, take what you leanred and move on.