Sports Reporter, Rocky Mount (N.C.) Telegram

I guess there are two ways to look at it:
One, just because others leap out of there, there's no assurance you will. And, in my opinion, it probably wouldn't look great on a resume.
On the other hand, have you ever been on a 3 lane highway? You're in the second lane and want to get to the fast lane, but you can't get over. Sometimes, you have to go to the slow lane, pass the guy who was in front of you in lane two so you can jump to the fast lane.

But whatever, I'm still trying to learn this biz myself. All I know is that jumps to Durham, Orlando, Carroll County (O's beat) aren't leaps to be sneezed at.

 

Prince: once again, you have to look at the big picture.
You need to analyze your situation and where you want to be. If you are at a similar size paper as the RMT, but only getting preps and youth sports, it might be a jump you want to make in order to get better assignments.
If you are at a similar size paper and getting good assignments, it might not be a jump to make.
To reiterate what omar said, just because some of the RMT hacks are moving on doesn't mean they all are.
If you are good enough, you can go places from just about anywhere.
I can't say this enough -- even at the worst shops you can still do good journalism, which is where some people seem to miss the boat.

 

It sounds like a good job, but from what I understand, pay is not tremendous (closer to 20 than 25, though Rocky Mount is a cheap place to live). More for the college kids who aren't rocking serious debt load than the older types, is my guess.

 

Is the Carroll COunty Os beat open?

 

Omar-Yes on double-A baseball, the Hurricanes and the ACC. The RMT, like my employer the similarly sized nearby Wilson Daily Times, doesn't cover the Durham Bulls or UNC-Wilmington. We cover East Carolina but RMT does not because another Cox paper, the Greenville Daily Reflector is the Pirates' hometown sheet.

I've gotten to know the guys who were there including Carter, Sawchik, Graff and the irrepressible Gluck, an SportsJournalists.com star. Plus the current staff, except Ben, whom I hope to meet soon. All great guys and all deserving of the opportunities they grabbed. The good things about the RMT are the obvious, as stated above, as well as living in a simply mad-for-sports community. Rocky Mount is the hometown of Phil Ford and Buck Williams and they love their high school sports there. You can cover ACC basketball one night and high school hoops the next night and the Hurricanes the night after that.

The only negatives I've seen regarding the RMT are the early deadline (paper is printed some 40 miles away) and the effect it has on high school coverage, which will always be the bread and butter for eastern N.C. newspapers. But, as I said, they have that Sunday edition and can make up for short Friday night stories with that section. Plus, they do really good features on Sundays. Graff and Carter, in particular, wrote some awesome stuff when they were there.

We appreciate them in Wilson because they put rosters of the football and basketball teams on their Web site for every HS in their coverage area!

 

No

 

Didn't think so. Guess that was just a hypothetic example.

Sorry, wasn't trying to hawk in on anyone's job. ;D

 

Keep in mind that, at some point, it simply comes down to talent.

If you have the talent that is going to catch the eye of a bigger paper, then all you need is a forum in which to display that talent. That's where the benefit of working at a paper that is going to let you cover some big-time sports comes in. But if you don't have the talent, it doesn't matter.

I understand the people who role their eyes whenever these Rocky Mount threads come up. Just because three people moved on to bigger and better things doesn't mean you will. They all had talent. The RMT is not some get-rich-quick newspaper that magically turns all of its writers into hot commodities.

Don't misinterpret that as a diss of the paper. The paper, it seems, does something really well: it allows its writers opportunities to sink or swim. If you think you've got the talent to swim, it's probably a good job. But if you don't, working for the RMT isn't going to suddenly move your clips to the top of every Sports Editor's pile.

EDIT: i was responding more to the post that asked if taking "one step back" to move three steps forward was a good idea. i agree with the post i quoted.

 

I'll give this a bump to see who has applied

 

Hugh's been pumping out a lot of copy for the Cup finals, but I notice they didn't send him to Edmonton (at least from the clips I see on the Web site).

 

send him to EDMONTON!?

come on now, the paper could never afford something like that. let's not get carried away...the Telegram is still a small paper. don't get the wrong idea there. small paper, small budget.

 

Hey, he could've hitch-hiked. ;D