Tampa Bay Times seeks college sports reporter

Also Matt, Washington State is not the University of Florida. Trying to compare the two is ridiculous.

 

No, the job was based in Seattle.

I'm not comparing which program has more prestige. If you read the job description, this is more than just being on the Gators 24/7. If you're needed to head down to Miami, up to Tallahassee or over to Orlando, I understand the Tampa focus. This thread just decided to devolve like most, ripping the job before considering there might be a reason it's based where it is.

 

Want to know the reason for cynicism? It's pretty clear the paper has an awful financial situation, selling its building just to pay off debt. 2. You're taking a beat that was a Florida-only beat (not sure if the TBT reporter lived there or not) and turning it into a situation where you're pulled between Florida and Florida State while trying to compete with numerous reporters on both beats embedded in Gainesville and Tallahassee. You're a jack of all trades, mastering none, and will never break a story that way on either beat. Instead, you'll get a great sense of Florida's interstate system while driving yourself to death and working your butt off for minimal return. Sounds awesome!
3. I realize you're young, idealistic and a newspaper supporter, but having a lack of cynicism about this job is just whistling past the graveyard.

 

Then the job should be called college football columnist because the writer is going to be asked to parachute into different places and compete against three different beat contingents in UF, FSU and Miami.

 

Have to go back to the Seattle Times job for a second. That's unfathomable that a beat reporter would be asked to live in Seattle and cover not one but two different college programs on the other side of the state, nearly three hundred miles away. While it's true that not every college writers based in the city of the program they are covering, this seems absurd. Constantly going back and forth would be difficult for anyone, and would make it extremely difficult to cover the beat thoroughly.

 

Didn't the Times (or Tampa) talk the FSU writer into relocating from Tallahassee to the home office a few years ago, only to lay him off soon after he and his wife made the move? Wife gave up a good job in the process, something like that, so they both got burned. That's one reason I brought it up.

The other is that you just can't cover UF, plus FSU and other "great stories around the state," from St. Petersburg without operating from a pretty significant disadvantage compared with other reporters based in those actual coverage areas. Probably an interesting job to have anyway, if it lasts, but it's pretty obvious that "Florida's largest newspaper" is scrambling to hold things together on the college scene. So you have to consider that if you go after the job.

 

I'm actually surprised they're not going a different direction with this opening. Tampa hasn't had an FSU or UF beat writer for years, so maybe they're trying to keep that perceived advantage. No doubt UF and FSU are big business in Florida's sports scene.

 

Riptide, good memory, but that was Scott Carter and the Tribune in 2008. 'Black Wednesday' in Tampa | Page 2 | SportsJournalists.com

 

Thanks for finding that. Carter's case apparently was the opposite, in which he agreed to leave the home office to work a beat in Tallahassee, then got laid off after he moved his family there. Those college beats in Florida used to be great jobs, but they are getting chewed up and redefined in a lot of different ways.

 

Take it from someone who covered a BCS school from nearly two hours away on a regular basis for a bit, when two of the beat guys lived in town, it was miserable. Your chances to break news are close to nil. You're essentially covering games and writing features, and the only way to stand out is with in-depth enterprise. Honestly, if you're going to cover a beat as a commuter that way, that's probably the best way to go about it. Kick ass on projects.

 

This. If you're covering the team from 100 miles away, you're basically covering the games and driving up/doing phoners occasionally to report features.

 

What do you mean Tampa hasn't had a UF beat writer for years? Antonya English, who just left the job less than a month ago, was covering UF for the Times since 2001.