Plans for the "Hiatus"?

Let's say you were the person that covered the Indiana Pacers for 25 years and is an NBA expert. Your editor comes to you and assigns you two stories:

1. How and why were so many NBA players able to get the coronavirus tests when so many doctors can't even find a test for an at-risk patient?
2. Never mind what the Pacers or the NBA might say about when the season might resume. What do public health experts say about when it might be safe to play, how that would be determined, and why (or why not) it would make sense to play without fans for some period of time?

Go.

 

if they lay off all the sportswriters whos gonna go on twitter and chide all the team and arena owners who arent paying gameday part timers.

i was told laying off people in this climate is criminal.

If they need to lay you off youre getting laid off, whether you say how high when they say jump or whether you stick to sports, or anything in between.

 

Sam Mellinger, K.C. Star sports columnist, has written two (or maybe three) stories in the last week on the coronavirus. One of them was about a girls' basketball team that had its shot at a state title cancelled, and another about a woman who delivers meals to the elderly and low-income people. The point is, there's all sorts of stories to be had by an enterprising reporter and a good editor, sports or not.

This coronavirus is likely the biggest story many reporters will ever cover.

 

Can't find the thread here, but the Washington Post has moved writers from sports to news beats in the last few years, one of the Nats writers to politics and the Caps writer to Moscow.

 

The hospitals will "no comment" you. The "businesses" won't be talking. They gain nothing by talking to you.
As far as you last part. You are simply wrong. people do care about sports right now. And there are sports stories to be had just as there are news stories. You said "if all you think you can do is cover sports you will not have a job by April." You won't have one by April anyway, likely. Newspaper chains will be bailing ship on staff very soon. They have a history of doing so and this gives them the opening they need to reduce staffs big time.

 

Hmm, the first story you mentioned sounds like a sports story. Obviously if a reporter comes across a news story, he/she should have at it. But not be stripped of sports. And he sounds like a fine reporter, sports or news or whatever.

 

I hate blaming the reporters all the time and taking management's side. Guess what? They are going to get laid off anyway. You know how many layoffs there have been to make sure the CEO's get paid the past 10 years? You know what? These sports writers "willing to move" are going to find out how easy being a news writer is working 40 hours a week. Traditionally news hasn't had the wink/wink work 60 get paid for 40 that sports has. I have no doubt the sports writers can do news writing. It's just unnecessary. Let the sports people write sports; they'll likely find a better news story than you'll assign them and write it up for newsside cause that's what sports writers do. But they've got to be forcibly moved over? That, folks, stinks.

 

Exactly. As always just work for yourself. They will fire you when they want. We all know it's coming, just different times for different people. The business is dead.

 

You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. For someone who purports to have a history in the business you have no clue how reporting works.

 

Fredrick knows the suits have made so many bad decisions that the newspaper business is dead. The suits have no idea how sports coverage works. I'd match my instincts against any suit whose only concern is the pocketbook of CEOs. You want sports writers wasting their time calling hospitals and business owners, No hospital official will tell a reporter what its needs are. They might hold a news conference if they see the need to get out any information. Business owners are not going to talk and let the public know they are close to going under. Again, seems like busywork for a 25-year veteran indiana pacers writer who could be coming up with some readable sports items. But news people always have underestimated sports; now they get their wish and get to hack the sports staffs to pieces.

 

Fredrick, let me say this: If you are somehow a real person and you really do work in a sports department, I have not underestimated sports. I have clearly overestimated sports.

 

Another interesting story idea - find someone else who missed on their shot for a championship or whatever from a bad fire or other disaster, war, tornado or school shooting and put them in touch with some of your local players and do a Zoom meeting, and interview them together, how they dealt with it, are dealing with it, etc.