Your favorite beat and why?

[Ace]

What do you guys think is a better job?
1. A reporter job at a major metro as a preps writer. You only semi-regularly help out with the major beats, writing sidebars from big games and other games that regular reporters can't get to. You also do a fair amount of "garbage work." You're issued a company laptop and occasionally travel. Your potential to move up is high.
2. A reporter job at a small/midsized paper where you're covering a major beat, traveling regularly but also needed to work on the desk, take scores in the office after a big game, help layout pages, etc. Your pay is $5K-$10K less. You use your own laptop, but the amount of "garbage" work you do is less. Your work is 250,000 subscriptions less circulated. (Of course, the major metro steals a lot of your work too, makes a few phone calls just because they can, and never attributes it to you) And, you've hit the ceiling for reporter jobs at your paper.

I would take No.1

I've worked as a reporter, I've taken scores by phone and I've worked the desk, too.

I don't like mixing them, though. Screw that.

 

[Appgrad05]

NHL, by far. Access is great, players are personable and helpful even you're the youngest guy covering it by a good 8-12 years.
Plus, only one timeout per team (that often go unused) means the last five minutes don't take up 30 and screw up your deadline.
I've covered ACC hoops and it's fun. But access can be horrible.

 

[Jones]

Boxing has a great rhythm to it. Wednesday press conference, Thursday weigh-in, Friday feature, Saturday fight, Sunday dissection. Monday and Tuesday off. Plus, most boxers are great to talk to, and the travel is usually pretty sweet.

Too bad the sport sucks right now. But the year I covered fights, I liked it just fine.

 

[farmerjerome]

Honest to God, high school football.

 

[jambalaya]

My college beat is a do-it-all type of endeavor. The place gets into lots of trouble and there's a bunch of news to cover. I love it. Of anything I've done, this has been the best.

After that, boxing and horse racing have been the most fun. Lot of characters. And the access, in my experience, has been very good.

 

[You're With Me Leather]

I cover college football, basketball (No. 2 on the beat) and college baseball. My favorite, by far, is college baseball.
College baseball players and coaches tend to appreciate the fact that you are covering them and there is something to that. There is not a lot of pressure to the beat and coming off football and basketball, it is a relaxing beat.

As for hoops and football, I'll take football.

 

[FootballScribe]

The NFL.

There's a rhyme and reason to all of the access and the NFL and PFWA look out for you in terms of access. Every week is important so you are rarely covering a game that "doesn't matter" and you get a week to flesh out what's going on in terms of who is doing what and who isn't.

Enjoyed college football as well.

I think the only beat I wouldn't want to try at least once is MLB. I just don't think I enjoy the game enough to deal with the travel and grueling schedule. Always thought it'd be cool to cover the NBA at least for a season.

 

[Bubbler]

I think the answer to this question depends on where you are in your life.

I've got at least a taste of every major sport there is to offer, with significant exposure to the NBA, NFL, major auto racing, and college football and basketball.

I did the NBA throughout much of the 90s when I was single and in my 20s. The access wasn't bad at all for the team I covered (it helped that most of them were pretty decent guys), I traveled a bit, but not regularly ... I dug it.

Had a similar experience with the NFL a few years later, only I was married and had two young children. I enjoyed it, but it was tougher to manage.

Now I have a true college basketball beat, all the travel, etc. It's perfect for where I am in my life. Yes, it is consumes nearly all my time from October to April, but the things that make it most difficult to manage -- the travel -- is concentrated over a two-month period. It is manageable. And as others have mentioned, the access is great.

I still harbor dreams in the back of my head of doing baseball, etc. But at this stage of my life, a college beat makes the most sense.

 

[SoCalScribe]

Wow, quite a broad mix of favorites here. In my opinion the most enjoyable thing to cover is MLB, but I can certainly see why many people would shy away from it. By September, pretty much everyone is really dragging and wishing the year would end.

Sometimes I'll think back and miss the days when I was a student stringing preps for the local paper and covering sports for the college paper. It was nothing special in retrospect but at the time I got quite a kick out of it. Those were actually some of the best times I've had in this business -- making mistakes, learning my way, and having a heck of a time doing it.

 

[SnoopyBoy]

MLB for me.
Yes, it's a grind, but that's what's great about it. You go to the ballpark every day and don't have to worry about daily feature ideas like you do in most other sports. Plus, you have so much access to the players, especially when your team is on the road and takes batting practice last. You have about 2 hours from when the clubhouse opens to BP starts. You can talk to everyone.

 

[RedCanuck]

I've been loving the Jr. C hockey I've been doing lately, so much so that I wouldn't mind if I didn't work my way back to major junior or reach my one-time goal of covering the pros.

It's a small league with few media centres, so it was easy to become sort of the inside guy in the league and get to know all the players and officials. Everyone's really accessible, and the kids are there mainly because they want to play. Because all the games are within an hour or two, I can make every road trip and see practically every game the local team plays and many more.

It's also interesting because at this level, there's a lot of secrecy for who teams might be signing or pursuing and a lot of different rules that can come into play, so there's some politicking and enterprise to be done as well. Great beat.

 

[HoopsMcCann]

i've been at places where the college hoops and football are split

a place where it's combined, but football's much more important and a place where it's combined and basketball is much more improtant

i really like the flow of a football season, especially when you get rolling. but then you've got spring (ugh) and signing day (triple ugh)

college hoops is ok... but i kind of look at it as just trying to get to that first weekend of the tournament. too bad the team i cover won't be headed there next year

whatever beat you're in, it's importnat to feel like you're in a rhythm and you know what you're doing. and no matter what beat it is, the second year is gonna be much better