1. Welcome to SportsJournalists.com, a friendly forum for discussing all things sports and journalism.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register for a free account to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Access to private conversations with other members.
    • Fewer ads.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

From the new MMQB

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Tiger16, Jul 21, 2008.

  1. Tiger16

    Tiger16 Member

    Release the hounds

    7. I think in the interest of full disclosure, I want to report that my daughter, Mary Beth King, has taken a PR internship with the Seattle Seahawks for the season. It's going to sound hollow to say I had nothing to do with it, but I didn't. She applied without telling me. New family rule: Mary Beth does not share conversations with Matt Hasselbeck or Mike Holmgren with her father.
     
  2. Cousin Jeffrey

    Cousin Jeffrey Active Member

    Not a big deal. Not like he needs his daughter, a PR intern, to get scoops or an in. The guy's more connected (especially in an organization run by Mike Holmgren) than anyone. There are a lot of big-name editors and writers whose kids work for teams and leagues. Most don't disclose it.
     
  3. Tiger16

    Tiger16 Member

    I agree it's not a big deal. It's laughable for him to try to portray like he had nothing to do with her getting the gig, however.
     
  4. Appgrad05

    Appgrad05 Active Member

    I would believe he didn't make a call or anything. But the PR head of the Seahawks is likely to see a Mary Beth King from New Jersey and put two and two together. Now, if she was in something random - marketing or ticket sales - I would believe no one had a clue who she was.
     
  5. Baltimoreguy

    Baltimoreguy Member

    Along with the conflict of interest/nepotism issues, here's another issue about how jobs in sports media get filled -- you have to be rich to get your foot in the door. Forget for a second that she's Peter King's daughter. How does a kid from New Jersey who just graduated from college in New York have the financial wherewithal to pursue an unpaid, or extremely low-paying, internship on the other side of the country in one of the nation's more expensive cities?

    Because her parents are rich. The same goes for kids trying to get their foot in the door with a summer internship at a newspaper. Not only do you have to be able to forego income during the summer, in most cases your parents have to be able to set up to live in a city for 12 weeks. I just wish that gaining a foothold at so many highly competitive jobs weren't the exclusive province of young people who can afford it.
     
  6. mediaguy

    mediaguy Well-Known Member

    She might be in Seattle just to send Dad massive amounts of coffee. You can never trust the local baristas ...
     
  7. henryhenry

    henryhenry Member


    you have to be rich to:
    1) get an unpaid internship
    2) get decent seats
    3) buy food at the concession stands
    4) park your car
     
  8. Baltimoreguy

    Baltimoreguy Member

    Hard-hitting MMQB piece by King on his daughter's new boss today:

    , Mike Holmgren, who, if it is possible in today's massively over-covered National Football League, remains an underrated figure. Holmgren announced in the off-season he would coach out the final year of his two-year contract extension in 2008, then part ways with the Seahawks. Seattle named secondary coach Jim Mora the coach for 2009 and beyond.

    When I say underrated, consider these numbers before I get back to the Holmgren 2008 story.

    • Bill Parcells averaged 9.63 wins per NFL season. Holmgren's average: 10.63.

    • Holmgren's 16 teams have won 170 games. Joe Gibbs' 16 teams won 171.

    • Holmgren is 170-110 as an NFL head coach. Paul Brown was 170-108-6 in the NFL
     
  9. Alma

    Alma Well-Known Member

    I missed the bullet that said "Mike Holmgren spent much of his time coaching in two piece of shit divisions."

    When you fatten up on Detroit, Arizona and pre-Dungy Bucs, hey, it has to be mentioned...

    Rarely has a guy been luckier in his coaching reign. Coach the Pack right up until Minnesota got good. Coached Seattle right after Denver lost Elway. Moved to the NFC West just as Kurt Warner lost his mojo. Win three divisional titles in Seattle with a 9-7 record.

    He was great in Green Bay. So-so in Seattle.
     
  10. Barsuk

    Barsuk Active Member

    Yeah, I'm sure all those columns PK wrote in which he name-dropped Mary Beth had absolutely nothing to do with her getting this job. Right.
     
  11. Piotr Rasputin

    Piotr Rasputin New Member

    Not sure someone would need to be able to put two-and-two together with his embarrassing chronicles of her field hockey exploits.

    No complaints about her getting the internship, of course. It really is about who you know, making connections, etc.
     
  12. Joe Williams

    Joe Williams Well-Known Member

    5) put gas in your car to drive you to the game.

    I've never been a big fan of the internships/foot-in-the-door approach, only because -- yeah, I'll admit, it's a personal bias -- I couldn't afford to give up a decent-paying summer job. Without that, I wouldn't have been able to attend college. So there is something to this pre-selecting that goes on, and for it to happen in a business that will then be paying people pretty crappy wages anyway, I think it stinks.

    When Mommy and/or Daddy don't bankroll you to tuition and room & board, they sure as hell aren't going to bankroll you to travel to a distant city and live, virtually without income, through a summer or a semester where you ought to be earning some college money.

    Papers I'm familiar with seem to use these intern programs to get cheap, cheap labor in the summer for when the regulars are taking vacation, and to boost their diversity profiles (one place I worked bent over backwards to have no more than 1 out of 9 interns be a white male. Summer after summer after summer.) They're welcome to that agenda, I suppose. But it always reminded me that I wouldn't have had a glimmer of a sliver of a chance, if that's what it took to get a decent post-graduation job, and it would have had absolutely nothing to do with my skills or clips or attitude or aptitude.
     
Draft saved Draft deleted

Share This Page