Getting a sports reporter job out of college without Journalism degree

Do you work for the school paper? If not, go there pronto. Get clips.

I'm a polisci guy too. How did I end up in sports journalism? I worked at the student paper for extra money and by the time it was all said and done I decided I liked that for a career more than my major (and by the time I was finishing up I was a regular stringer, then a part-timer, at the city daily).

 

osu kid, I'll admit that I sometimes get pissed off here when some of the rabble begin trying to talk J-school students out of entering the business, kids who grew up wanting to be nothing but newspapermen.

I don't think that's right, and I think some of them do it just because misery loves company.

But if you didn't walk the walk in college, I think you're just too far behind the 8-ball. At the very least, you have to start working toward the job during school. Those jobs are just too hard to come by these days.

 

Whatever you do to gain experience (and practical experience is the thing you need to be focusing on if you don't bother with J-School), try to do it in a setting where you can get some tough love editing. The school paper is great for that. Starting a blog is a way to get your name out there and build experience writing and communicating with an audience, but in general you'll miss what I think is the very vital component of having somebody experienced shape your work.

I was a better writer when I left J-School than when I entered it. Not because of anything I learned in text books, but because I had professors who had worked in the business who told me, "Write fast and write clean, and write accurately or else nothing else in this thing will matter. Don't bury the important facts in a huge paragraph nine graphs down. This thing you just showed me is not very good, here's how to make it better..." and so forth.

 

I don't think any journalism aspirant should major in journalism. Or at least very few. And only then as a second or third major or a minor. Or a masters from Columbia.

 

A former co-worker is starting her Masters at Columbia. Bless her heart.

 

Dick, that's not among your smarter advice.

 

Oh, not recommending it over an MD or even a hard science degree.

Very narrow advice - if you really want to get a journalism degree, and absolutely want to position yourself for a shot at the big-time, that might be the route to go. Obviously not for everyone.

 

I agreed to have coffee with and give advice to a college senior, a journalism major, who wants to be a sports reporter. My coffee was still hot when she said she never wrote for the school paper and never wrote a sports story -- not even in her journalism class. As gently as I could, I told her she faces long odds. I'm not sure she has any idea how unrealistic her goal really is. I wondered what her adviser had been doing for nearly four years.

 

I have a feeling that there is a disconnect between advisers and students a lot of times. I know I had big dreams and my adviser only thought little. The faculty at my college were absolutely shocked when at our first Homecoming after graduation I had landed at a 90,000-circulation paper. And that's not even that big. They just didn't think that way.

I've heard horror stories, for example, in other fields, as well. Advisers telling students that, "You can't really study for the LSAT."

 

Lack of a journalism degree doesn't mean anything. Lack of experience and clips means a whole hell of a lot.

So if this is what you want to do, get all the experience you can and get your degree in whatever.

 

I'm not going to say a journalism degree doesn't mean anything, although I know that a lot of journalism faculty takes an unrealistic view on the working world.

But the basic news-writing, news-editing, ethics classes, I think, are still necessary.

I think a little more accurate might be this: As a hiring editor, I would rather see a kid come in with a journalism degree, a 2.2 GPA and a suitcase full of clips than I would a kid with a journalism degree, a 3.9 GPA and no clips.

And if you can't show me that you understand some basic journalism concepts such as libel, fairness in reporting, etc., those clips might not help too much, either. I can't be your professor in the newsroom.

 

What about: 2.2 GPA, suitcase full of clips, and a journalism degree vs. 3.9 GPA, no clips, degree in economics. Or statistics. Or international relations. Or engineering. Or philosophy. Something rigorous.

Who do you hire?