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Jason Quick opens up about leaving the Blazers' beat

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Elliotte Friedman, Aug 20, 2013.

  1. It's hard to be a journalist when you have to work to get a story.
     
  2. Versatile

    Versatile Active Member

    I can't take people who say "I want to tell stories" when asked why they got into sports journalism.
     
  3. PCLoadLetter

    PCLoadLetter Well-Known Member

    Totally agree with that. In my time up there, Portland was a strange place in that regard. A huge percentage of people who viewed themselves as big Blazers fans didn't follow the NBA in the slightest. They could name the star players and had little nicknames for them but couldn't even tell you what position they play.

    I used to go to a fair number of Winterhawks games -- their Western Hockey League team. Those fans, collectively, were the least knowledgeable sports fans I've ever encountered anywhere. The high point was whenever the opposition was killing a penalty and would clear the puck, the season ticket holders would start screaming for an icing call. "Call it both ways, ref! Call it both ways!"
     
  4. Double J

    Double J Active Member

    That's kind of a surprise. They've had high-level hockey in Portland for 100 years - you'd think that people there would know the sport as well as fans do anywhere.
     
  5. Johnny Dangerously

    Johnny Dangerously Well-Known Member

    What answer(s) would please you?
     
  6. Versatile

    Versatile Active Member

    Pretty much anything less cliché would be fine. It's that particular answer, not the sentiment, that gets me.
     
  7. PCLoadLetter

    PCLoadLetter Well-Known Member

    I know -- it's genuinely odd. For a minor league city there's a remarkable hockey tradition there. The team was very well supported and the fans were very enthusiastic. They just had no basic understanding of the game.
     
  8. Elliotte Friedman

    Elliotte Friedman Moderator Staff Member

    Honestly surprised by the response to this. While the "seeing an athlete with a woman not his wife" bit struck me as ridiculously naive, some of the other things he talked about rang true with me.

    Being a beat reporter can be a frustrating experience, especially with an unfriendly team/organization. The 2000-07 Trail Blazers were among the worst. Bad players, bad management. I enjoyed his insight. The Batum thing is something I've been through too.

    It didn't strike me as whiny, but honest. Have many of you been beat reporters? The frustrations he went through would be shared by others who've done the job.
     
  9. The insights work well on a beat writer listserv, but the public and other reporters don't care.
     
  10. Versatile

    Versatile Active Member

    I guarantee the hits would tell a different story. I've already seen non-journalists passing this link around on Twitter.
     
  11. Johnny Dangerously

    Johnny Dangerously Well-Known Member

    There's that.

    And to the larger issue of the public not caring, a little context is in order:

    So I hatched an idea called Behind the Locker Room Door, which let the readers experience what it was like to cover the team. It was a transparent look into how I interacted with the players, and how they interacted with me, and moreso how they interacted with one another.

    Quick had already shared behind-the-scenes stuff with his many readers/followers several years ago, so it was not a new concept for him to go behind the curtain again -- in an interview or in the piece linked earlier today. The insight into the process was part of why readers liked his stuff. At least that's what they've told me.
     
  12. Versatile

    Versatile Active Member

    Readers envy our jobs. They don't understand that these are jobs like most other jobs. Or maybe we're the ones who take our jobs for granted. Whatever the reason, these types of essays and features tend to be very popular.
     
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