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So you want to be a beat writer . . .

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Ralph Smith, Feb 1, 2014.

  1. jr/shotglass

    jr/shotglass Well-Known Member

    Hey, I gave up the dream at 25 and went another route. But the idea certainly had enough appeal to drive me to that point.
     
  2. BB Bobcat

    BB Bobcat Active Member

    A lot of my baseball writer pals were retweeting that and posting it on Facebook, but I didn't for just the reason that's been stated. No one wants to hear our whining about travel.

    During one of my layoff periods I had an office job. A real live 9-5 water cooler office job. I vowed then never to complain about being a sports writer, and to realize that all those people who spend their lives in cubicles writing TPS reports have it way worse.

    The travel and working odd hours are worth not being trapped in a cubicle.
     
  3. FileNotFound

    FileNotFound Well-Known Member

    That site desperately needs some help adapting to mobile. Every few grafs as I scrolled, the menu would overtake the text of the story. So I didn't make it all the way through. But most jobs that require travel have a lot of travel stress involved. My travel in my post-journalism job has been more than 70 percent a few years, and I don't have an off-season.

    The perks, though, can be pretty sweet if you play the frequent-flier and hotel loyalty games right. I haven't paid for a vacation flight or hotel since 2004. Small payoff for all the time on the road, but for me, a worthy payoff.
     
  4. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    Baseball travel is so much worse than the other sports. I only did it briefly, but I don't know how anyone, especially anyone with a family can maintain that schedule.
     
  5. BB Bobcat

    BB Bobcat Active Member

    Wouldn't basketball or hockey be worse?

    First of all, it's winter so the weather causes much more of an issue. Second, every trip is one game. In baseball you essentially have 26 road series in a season, so that's 26 different sets of landings and takeoffs and check-ins and check-outs. But in basketball and hockey it's 40-something.

    I've never done NBA or NHL, so I'd be curious to hear from someone who has done both.
     
  6. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    The NBA doesn't have back-to-back road games that often and when they do, it's often in cities that are close to each other. Portland-Seattle; Sacramento-Oakland; Chicago-Milwaukee; Orlando-Miami... My worst NBA travel experience was in the preseason when they played three road games in four days in smaller cities.

    Spring training is the other aspect of baseball that makes it tougher. I always loved going to Spring Training, but I was single when I was doing baseball. The prospect of being away for that long when you have a wife and kids is pretty brutal. The NBA and NHL don't have any situation where you're on the road for a month straight.
     
  7. playthrough

    playthrough Moderator Staff Member

    There are road warriors in every profession. After I traveled for a while on beats I finally related to how my dad felt, gone M-F virtually my entire childhood as a clothing salesman.
     
  8. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    True. I had several friends growing up whose fathers were on the road from Sunday night/Monday morning until Thursday night or Friday almost every week...
     
  9. H.L. Mencken

    H.L. Mencken Member

    This isn't a complaint as much as a simple statement of fact: the expectations for fathers in that era were much different than they are now.
     
  10. Drip

    Drip Active Member

    As a beat guy, to maintain a lifestyle outside of the industry, you need a special partner who both understands you and the business.
     
  11. boundforboston

    boundforboston Well-Known Member

    Are more papers increasing the duties of the No. 2 guy on the road?
     
  12. da man

    da man Well-Known Member

    Most baseball beat writers I've known were either single or divorced while they were on the beat. a couple of them got divorced while they were on the beat.
     
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