Fantasy Sports "Journalism"

Been reading these boards for a few months, but this is my first post.

Was curious what everyone thought of writing/working for a fantasy sports site. I'm not sure it can be classified as "journalism" since you really don't get credentialed to games, and you won't get to write any great feautures about players unless you know them personally.

I've been offered a job with one. Pay sucks (even worse than a print job for a small daily or weekly), but you can work from home and set your own schedule. No benefits, and you are a 1099 staffer.

I also do a lot of work for my hometown paper (stringing preps, pulling desk duty, and occasionally minor-league baseball and limited ACC sporting events), but we are cutting staff and it doesn't seem that any full-time gigs are going to open up there for me anytime soon.

I don't want a negative impact with credible media outlets on my resume should a job arise in the future if fantasy sportswrting is frowned upon in the industry.

It's not in my wheelhouse entirely (I've written over 150 gamers, features, and advances during my tenure at the newspaper I work for, plus, was a former editor/writer for a now-defunct internet news site)

Just curious what folks think, and what the perception of fantasy sports "reporting" is throughout the masses who read this site.

Thanks for any input.

 

Cubman,
You don't live on Topsail Island do you? I saw a truck with N.C. plates that said CUBMAN last week!

 

It seems like you'd be stringing, technically, and nothing more.

Hell, when I was on a pro beat, I strung for a fantasy web site. This was back before the dot-crash, and they paid me more than enough to cover my rent each month for two notebooks a week.

If you don't use it in your clips when applying to print jobs, I don't see what the big deal is. Go for it.

 

Nope, not that far east. I live in Winston-Salem...but I've been to Topsail on numerous occasions. I'd like to get back there someday.

 

My brother-in-law has a beach house there. Just got back from 10 days of vacation, and I'm ready for more.

 

I'll write pretty much anything somebody is willing to pay me for.

 

I've seen people do all those things without actually practicing journalism.

 

My thoughts exactly. It's a lot easier to swallow pride with a helping of food.
And as long as you're still writing other stuff, which I assume you'd have to do to make ends meet, there's nothing wrong with picking up an extra paycheck.

 

Yeah. Fantasy sports writing is probably pretty fun too. It's probably too late to corner the market with superior knowledge, since everyone is on the fantasy scene now. But if you spend as much time checking your lineup as I do, why not make some coin along with it.

 

I can't imagine any amount of experience would hurt your career.

 

Any editor that will fault you for trying to make ends meet is someone you probably don't want to work for anyway!