Sports Reporter, The Robesonian (Lumberton, N.C.)

Alright, point taken. Maybe a bit of self-promotion, but what can I say? I'm lookin' for a job. The trends of the time are to give high school athletes and college athletes prime-time treatment, because the truth is the old guys in the diner who buy a paper everyday want to see their favorite Jonny Moxon get treated like Jonny Elway. The truth is truth is paramount. It will continue to be exactly that.

 

Get the kids' names right and make sure your verbs agree with your nouns. Then talk about 'Jonny' Elway.

 

OK Champ, a few words of advice.

1.) The Sportsjournalist.com message board isn't the place to self-promote. If you want to apply for a job, send your resume, clips, etc. If you want to talk trash, go hit the IU message board and talk about the Hoosiers. This isn't your regular message board; there are quite a few big-name journalists and sports editors who frequent this message board and seeing you "talk trash" isn't going endear yourself to them. ... Especially if your e-mail address is available on your profile.

2.) It's Johnny, actually John, not Jonny. But I digress.

3.) A word of advice from one young journalist to another. You, just from the few posts you've made, seem to think you know a lot. Get used to the fact that you don't. (And I'm certainly not proclaiming that I do) They can teach you all the fine things they want in journalism school, but this isn't the IU Bugle or where ever you did your internship. This is the real world. If you walk into my office and think you're Mitch Albom fresh out of college, I'm going to show you the door in a hurry. Act with class. Act with maturity. Congratulations, you're sports journalist. But act like a professional.

4.) Fetch me a beer, newbie.

 

A word of wisdom, something I learned early on in the business:

It doesn't matter what college paper you wrote for or what J-school you came out of. When you enter this business, you are not anywhere near as good as you think you are.

 

That brings me to the question, when do you expect to begin interviews for the position?

 

I am graduating in May, and I assume like most college graduates, feel pretty confident in my knowledge of sports. However, just having found this site a few days ago, I have already learned A TON.

Without confidence it seems impossible to make in this business...but there is a big difference between confidence and OVER-confidence.

 

See, you've learned something all ready.

 

Having great knowledge of sports is important, but that's not going to lead you to a successful career in sports journalism. To paraphrase Ken Burger's column, which I posted last week, sports is what we cover. Writing is what we do.

Confidence is good if you have the abilities that you're confident about. Overconfidence or cockiness is bad. Almost every young journalist enters this profession thinking they're going to be writing a column for the AJC in two years. Then they find out that it's not that easy and they still -- despite a fancy degree -- have a ton to learn. Trust me, I was that guy, a few years back, who thought I was God's gift to journalism. I had a mean, old boss who humbled me pretty quick. I should probably thank him every day for it.

 

I feel as though I have a lot to learn...But my parents are always quick to remind me with the fact that I haven't done anything yet and nothing is easy. I might not like hearing it, haha, but, I listen.

 

My favorite part: "Jonny Moxon" is the name of James Van der Beek's character in Varsity Blues. GREAT reference.

I DON'T WANT YER LIFE!!!

 

Something tells me, though, that when this job is filled RazorShines is going to be crying. And not just because he's a bit of a crier.

 

To get this thread back to the point, I interviewed for this job a couple of years ago and turned it down for one very important reason - location, location, location. The area is kind of a dump with a lot of crime and NOTHING to do.

But to the paper's credit, Donnie seemed like a great editor that was really willing to work with younger guys trying to climb the ladder. Plus, when I interviewed there, they were in the process of moving to a new office because their old one was kind of crappy.