Best way to pursue a job in a Sports Information Department?

Well, clearly I'm not going to either place.

 

I see your point, Henry, and agree with it.

My point was that I've seen some good features written in game programs, and I had the opportunity to do so by contributing to College Advancement (fund raising) publications.

If the SID is doing it right, he/she is a valuable asset to both the local media and the school. My two examples.

1) Florida vs. Bethune-Cookman softball. We were beating the Gators 4-0 after three. I called the local paper and said ``Uh, I know this is softball, but Bethune-Cookman is beating Florida. If we hold on, how much space could you give it."

Since we got the call in early and B-CC won 5-0 for one of the greatest victories in school history, sports gave us a 10 inch story which read like a gamer rather than a press release.

2) Ole Miss vs. B-CC women's basketball. Ole Miss was ranked and playing a tournament in Orlando. B-CC played toughed, led midway through the final half but Ole Miss took control and eeked out a 4-5 point win. Since Ole Miss was ranked, AP ran a photo over the wire. I wrote the "B-CC loses the game but wins the respect of an SEC school" variant 12-inch gamer with quotes from both teams coaches and players for the web site and shipped it to the local media. The result was the paper had a solid local lead story for the inside college page and the women's basketball team had a nice clip for recruiting.

 

That is a good idea because I know several people who are interested in SID jobs.

 

That can be the best thing for an under covered school.

In Louisiana, Northwestern State is in the middle of nowhere, halfway between Alexandria and Shreveport (an hour from each). It's a given that neither the Shreveport Times nor the Alexandria Town Talk will ALWAYS cover games (maybe football, but not necessarily hoops and basketball). So SID Doug Ireland does a good job of writing his gamers to read like newspaper games with quotes, optional-type leads, etc. They are homerish, of course. SID writing is supposed to be. But like you said, it's a win-win for the papers who want coverage, but don't necessarily have the resources to always cover and for a school that needs the publicity.

 

You realize that the job of the SID staff is not to provide you with AP-appropriate material that you can just drop into your news hole? They're writing for their audience, just like you write for yours. Things may have been different in the pre-internet age, but the rules have changed.

Hard-core fans and players' parents realize they can go to www.gostateu.com instead of www.bumblefuckpress.com for timely results written from the fanboi perspective, which they want to read. It's the same story of how niche websites that cater to a specific point of view have exploded while general interest publications have dwindled.

 

I respectfully disagree.

The job of the SID is to obtain the maximum coverage for his/her program. If that entails helping a perimeter media outlet filling a news hole, than that what the SID must do, and it's credit to he/she if they do.

 

And it makes a difference. What a shop can do with SID material is not regurgitate it, but edit it to be more neutral and perhaps add something from the other team's story (maybe they have a coach's quote from their team) to make it read more like a regular gamer.

Look, I know it's not an ideal situation to rely on what is essentially a publicist (a litle harsh? Maybe, but an SID's primary responsibility HAS to be to the people signing his checks), but let's get real here. A big chunk of our time is about making do with less-than-ideal circumstances, especially in this climate.

Having an SID who is thorough with his writing is one of the ways a paper can deal with understaffing issues. Now you find days off for your beat writer when said college is playing Timbuktu State in a mid-week baseball game, or you found a way to get by when Mid-Major U is playing a basketball game the same weekend the state high school tournament is in your town. All hands on the prep tournament, and somebody be in charge of getting, editing and adding to the SID gamer from the college game.

If all you get is bare bones, in those kind of situations, you wind up with nothing but a brief.