Keys to Becoming a Beat Reporter

As a journalist that is a year or two removed from college, what's the key to landing a job as a beat reporter at a large newspaper? Is it having previous experience covering that sport? Being a strong and versatile writer? Experience breaking news?

Thank you for the help.

 

At a large newspaper? Being a good reporter and writing human interest/feature stories in a writerly way.

When people send/attach clips, there are usually 3-4 of those kinds of stories in there. Some player’s single mom, some athlete who had a brother or a friend die. Diseases, adversity, stuff like that. That reads cynical, but it’s really pragmatic. They’re looking for award winners. If you have some of those, point them out.

There is much more to being a good beat writer, mind you, but my experience is many beat writers at large newspapers are hired for their outside-the-box work, not their inside-the-box work. Editors don’t hire for commercial purposes, or for other readers. Not usually. They hire for what impresses other journalists.

So I’d work on features.

Now, you wanna work at a Website like rivals or 247 or one of those off-brand MLB/NFL/NBA sites, you’d better know your shit, or love recruiting.

 

Breaking news is important. It shows you know how to develop sources and cultivate them effectively. And not just "so-and-so committed to Podunk University" stuff. Think hirings and firings and behind-the-scenes.

If I were a hiring editor looking for someone for a pro beat, especially, that would be my top criteria.

 

If you want to work at a "large" newspaper, you're going to need one of these:



The choices are small and smaller these days.

 

First, buy a large newspaper.

 

1. Write for free on SB Nation or some other "cool kid" house of cards built on unpaid labor that'll let you blog from your couch
2. Broadcast your entire life story, including all of your straw-man political opinions, on all forms of social media. Make sure to include motivational hashtags and tweet a lot about how hard you work, because people will think that's cute.
3. Have lots of reactions to innocuous stuff you saw on Twitter or Instagram.
4. ?????
5. PROFIT!

 

See, I'd reverse it. News generally gets broken by national sites (for pro stuff) and the recruiting sites (for college stuff) so if you can show you're a good features writer, you'll get a gig based on your longer clips.

It's just what I've seen as a trend. Maybe I'm off. It helps to be young and cheap and like social media. Maybe be a little twee. But I don't think editors hire for people who know their sports and beats. I think they hire for people who won Hearst Awards with long features and stories about overcoming adversity. That's how internships tend to get picked, too.

 

You have to be able to do a variety of different things on a variety of different platforms. You can't only write features or break news, you have to do both as well as be able to do video and podcasts.

 

This. It's assumed you can write a basic gamer. But look at the job ads. They want someone who can do enterprise, features, video and podcasts.

 

This might be a threadjack but generally speaking is it better for a young reporter to aspire to work for a website or a newspaper. I realize that the answer would differ depending on the interests of the individual.

And this is another tangent but if I was a young reporter looking for a beat assignment on a newspaper I would think very hard about the job security of the beat. If you are not offered a NFL. MLB, NBA, NHL or the principal university you are working in a temp job.

 

You do have to be able to do those things once you’re hired.

Are you hired for a beat because you can do video? No.