On why everyone should be a sportswriter for a little while...

A e-mail passed along from David von Drehle, posted recently on a good writing blog.

http://gangrey.com/898

As a sportswriter-turned-newsie, I'd say he makes some very good points.

 

i've done both news writing and sports writing. no contest. sports writing is more challenging.

 

Re: No. 5...my boss cares very much. I don't want to work for someone who doesn't.

 

Girl--I get your point, but it's almost worse when you have a boss who cares too much about sports. I've worked for publishers who think that, because they know a little bit about sports, start making crazy suggestions about how to cover things ... when, in truth, they should be spending time with other things.

 

But he/she is the boss for a reason. And I know I'd damn well better listen, even if I think the idea is crazy.

I'm not going to win that argument.

 

Good point ... I always made sure I was smiling politely when we had one of our meetings about "the direction" of the sports section.

 

I think I used for work for your boss. Been there, been done like that.

 

I've seen some newsies try to come over to sports later on, and it wasn't pretty.

I can't speak for everyone out there, but a lot for some reason, all of the newsies I've worked with always seems to look down on us sports writers, but when the reality is that any of us can do their jobs, but the reverse is not true.

 

I sent this out to some of our writers, one of whom sent it to our executive editor.

 

We're getting a news summer intern from Local U. I'm making her cover a few sporting events because I think it's important to her journalism education. And I'll be making copies of this list.

 

With all that going for it, why do it "a little while"? What's wrong with forever?