From Sports Writing To Writing For School's Website

Saw the release that DePaul has hired a former Chicago sportswriter in its SID office to mostly write for the athletic website.

This is a trend that I have seen coming (I just hired an aspiring journalist fresh out of school to do the same at my place). I saw Houston did the same recently.

How many other schools have done this recently and is this something that you, knowing how full-time jobs are disappearing quickly, would like to do.

I am interested to see your feedback.

 

I think that within 5 years, just about every school will have there own in-house writer.

 

If you're not at a major school, the pay will be worse in many cases than what a newspaper job pays.

 

Great benefits though and the time to freelance as well.

Also, considering the number of jobs that are going away daily, it would be a pretty stable job.

 

If you can get that job, take it now.

I could have done that a few years ago and I really regret not taking it.

 

My alma mater did this last year... pulled a guy that had been on the school's beat for 25 years with the local metro and now he's writing "featurettes" and updating the alumni on salient info around campus. Seems to be working out for them. At least it breaks up the monotony of all that PR crap.

 

Exactly. Not sure what the money's like, but expect more and more schools to follow the same route, sooner rather than later.

 

Buddy of mine left the daily here -- after 20+ years -- to do this for the local major university. He left the paper a few months before layoffs began, and got himself a $10,000 raise in the process.

 

What's interesting about all of this is that a lot of the BCS schools are still using AP material on their sites. Of course, this mostly applies to football and men's and women's hoops. Not just the game story (both first or final editions), but many of the advances (that the official media game notes are attached to) are the AP game previews.

The question is, are these schools going to continue using this content as long as they can get it, or make the leap and bring in a new voice? Remember, many DI athletic programs are under financial constraints as well (of course, it pales in comparison to journo jobs), both big and small time.

 

More questions: How long before the AP starts charging these universities to post those stories? How is this different than bloggers linking to AP stories for free? Or does the AP just have a handshake deal with the schools, because it's in its best interests to foster accessibility to the programs?

 

Interesting trend. The internet has changed the entire wasy sports information offices operate. Instead of serving primarily media needs, the SID now can and does communicate directly with the fans and bypass the media altogether.

Having worked in both traditional media (newspapers, radio) and SID, the skills needed are very similar. So to hire someone who has a great deal of familiarity with a program makes perfect sense.

The only issue, as others have said, is how to handle the less-than-flattering type of news that you would normally report on a newspaper beat.