Looking for a Blogger - College Football

Exposure means nothing. I can set my own blog or write for Bleacher Report and get more exposure. You're post is frankly insulting to those who make a living as a sports writer. If you want to be treated seriously, then run your business professionally instead of seeking free help for you to possibly make money. I doubt you will, though.

 

"Not on the real jobs board" Ouch.
One would hope freelancing is considered a real job. It's been my main source of income for the better part of two decades until all the wells ran dry.

 

I'm going to defend this guy. Kinda.

He didn't misrepresent himself in the original post. He didn't claim that his site was going to be the next ESPN.com, he's not asking for full-time work pro bono and he didn't try to tempt writers with nebulous promises of future compensation, which might come to pass if the operator wins the Mega Millions jackpot with a ticket he bought in a convenience store on the frozen banks of the river Styx. It's what it is -- a start up website on an Internet clogged with thousands of similar sites, all possessing their own fevered dreams attached to rigged lottery odds of success. He made it clear that he has no expectation of experienced professional writers rushing their portfolios to his inbox, and asked for guidance from people who might be interested. As volunteer writing solicitations on this board goes, it's not the most egregious offense.

Which leads me to the more controversial point: I get that we, as current/former/future journalists, should take a doleful pride in our work and our profession. I understand that many of us are frustrated that are audience is fractured more every day, and that websites and publications without the standards we take for granted are driving that. But I think we're starting to get myopic in how we approach it.

Again, I understand that we take the profession seriously. Of course we should. But here's what we forget oftentimes -- there's plenty of people for whom writing is a hobby, a side project, a hazy dream of what they wish they could be. You're going to find way more recreational writers than recreational accountants or house painters. There's a place for the casual sports writer.

OK, so yeah, maybe a professional journalism trade board doesn't sound like the place to move your wares, but at the same time, there's a lot fewer full-time sportswriters here than there were two years ago. Many of us have moved on to non-sports journalism jobs. Maybe some of us will come back. I'm guessing most won't. But I'd also be willing to be that many of us, regardless of how we feel about the industry or the job requirements now that we're in a different place, still dig the art of sportswriting. And hey, maybe someone who still like watching games and writing casually every so often might be OK with this. If you're not, so be it. It's not taking food off your table or ads from your inside pages.

 

I would, but I'd probably offer lemonade.

 

I reacted to that because it occured to me reading it that writing is a different profession than most because it generates a lot of people doing it for fun, and sometimes we tend to forget that. I took it as that he wanted a writer for his unpaid website that, regardless of his intentions or willingness to work, will probably not succeed. And he went to a board with professionals on it, hoping that hey, maybe one of them WOULD be down with doing a little volunteer blogging. I don't know how much good it'll actually do for out-of-work writers trying to re-enter the game, but hell, paid freelance and part-time jobs rarely do any good for them either, other than a little money for the effort.

Personal anecdote: In my 18-month forced sabbatical from being a useful member of society, I had an $8/hour job answering phones at one paper and wrote freelance for another paper at $50 a story, which usually worked out to $10-12.50 an hour. I had no conceit that either would do a damn thing to help me in the long run; it was just something to do that I do reasonably well. Which is probably the healthy approach to take with these kind of volunteer writing jobs. It's not going to pay off, most likely. Nice to dream that it can, but it won't.

 

When I run across threads like this, I'm always reminded of an encounter I had with a lady in a big box store a few months after moving from a weekly to a daily in the same chain.

Lady: There hasn't been a good word about our kids in the paper since you left. You should come back.
HSSE: But I'm making more money at this job.
Lady: That dosen't matter.

End of conversation, since I left before saying something I knew I'd regret. Yes, some write for fun, and while I do have fun writing, I also do it for money. So, yes, it matters!

 

So you're working at the big box store?

 

Tell the lady if you come back, you'd just write bad things about the kids. I'd also tell her the mind her business and shut up.

 

Good idea. She pays you a compliment and you tell her to shut up. That's a plan for success.