One of mob covering BIG beat vs. "own" small beat

Was Ira Winderman there to greet everyone with black and red pompons?

 

And don't just break them, get them right. Every internet sports fandom I hang out on, there's a consensus about which sites you can believe stories from and which ones aren't worth bothering with because they'll rush to print every unsubstantiated rumor.

 

Pros and cons to both, of course, but some of by best friends, as they say, are sports writers, so the advantage of a big beat is having more friends/colleagues/acquaintances. I sometimes think it would get lonely/boring flying solo.

 

I know baseball is a nine-month grind when you factor in spring training but I can't think of a worse pro beat than an NBA team that has a large media following (like the Heat this season).

You've got a large group of competitors and - compared to the NFL, MLB & the NHL - a smaller number of players, coaches & support staff to mine for sources. That's got to suck.

 

This is very true. Most of the spots on the road any more, I know someone to hang out with on the Friday night before a football game. But I'm usually the only one around to cover the team. It was a little jarring -- and actually somewhat refreshing -- to have someone else asking questions of the coach I cover last week at the postgame presser in state at a school where more than one outlet covers the team.

 

think big all the time

if you're on a big-city pro beat, don't settle for being on the fringes, no matter how small your paper is

screw this small-time thinking

get 1-on-1s. write different stuff when you can. don't settle for pack journalism. out-work everybody else. be persistent. cover the news but don't be afraid to stray off the beaten path for stories.

rule your beat

 

Lay awake in bed at 2 a.m., scared shitless that an athlete on your beat is getting a DUI and you're going to get scooped on it if you fall asleep.

Get yelled at by your superiors because your blog post was 45 minutes behind someone else's.

Try to get 1-on-1s and get stood up by the subject. Write different stuff, then see it copied and marginalized by 20 other people on the beat. Have no choice but to settle for pack journalism because you have one hour a week of access (which will be cut off if you step outside those boundaries).
Outwork everybody else, but still miss a scoop because it was furlough week or one of your competitors happened to overhear two front office types talking about a trade in the john.

Get stressed out.

Be one of the faceless hordes on your beat.


Seriously, Dog, did they make you memorize that spiel in journalism boot camp? It sounds like something out of a bad movie.

 

I won't hold my breath waiting for the Stuart (Fla.) News to get a 1-on-1 with LeBron.

Then again, I won't hold my breath waiting for the Palm Beach Post to get one, either.

Over/under on major stories broken by either of the three major dailies covering the team this season: 1 (and I seriously suggest taking the under).

 

What qualifies as breaking a major story these days? Tweeting it three seconds before the next working hack? Or "confirming" the first hack's Tweet?

 

Well, that's the next place I was going to go.

Assuming one of the papers does get a true scoop --- say, LeBron to undergo season-ending surgery 10 games into the season --- naturally it'll need to be posted online ASAP.

Five minutes later, ESPN will have a story on its website saying, "ESPN has learned . . . "

So unless you have cracked the Google search logarithm code to keep your story at the top of Google's first page . . . your scoop will die 10 minutes before it could say it had its 15 minutes of fame.

 

Get yourself a television special and break the story with a live interview.

 

Not all small beats are the same. Not all big beats are the same. A lot of it depends on the circumstances.

I've covered a small beat -- we were the only paper who covered this FCS school on a day-to-day basis -- but in that town, that school was like a mini SEC or Big 12 school. They had tremendous fan support and your coverage gave you this cult following nationally because they were a cult following team. I'd get feedback from fans of other powerhouse FCS programs and tons of feedback from the local school fans. The best way to describe it is something akin to Boise State at the beginning of its rise. But I would hate to cover said team if it was in a market where it attracted only marginal interest. And there are a LOT of teams at that level that attract marginal interest.

But because of this particular team's following, it was tremendous fun. You had tremendous access and insight. You knew your stuff was being read. And there was always a chance the story could become bigger than that small town.

Conversely, I've also covered a top 10 BCS program. I hated the cattle calls for player "availabilities" and the lack of access. I love the competition and the intensity of interest of the readers. I'd get more feedback on some run-of-the-mill midweek throwaway (too harsh of a word, but just saying) story than the political guys get for stories on controversial issues. That kind of stuff just makes you want to dig deeper and deliver the goods because you know it will be read and you know that if you don't, the other guy will.

So it's not as simple as one being better or worse. Lots of nuances to that question...