When the stringing gig becomes an instant classic

Hell yeah. Saw the last few minutes, and if you're a stringer or beat writer, you couldn't ask for a better game to cover.

Hopefully it will be a good clip for you, too, Daytona.

 

So much of that depends on the relationship you have with the client ... better it is, the more you know what to give them ...

 

A story: At Super Bowl XXXVI, when the Pats beat the Rams, Herald post-game coverage plans got a little discombobulated, and long story short, we had nobody left to cover the Rams.
Cosmo Macero, from the business section, had been down in New Orleans to cover New England business biggies at the Super Bowl. He had a game credential for the press room.
Cosmo raised his hand and said he could cover the Rams. On one minute's notice, he went to the interview room got material and wrote a Warner story and Faulk story and made deadline. Good stories, too. That's professionalism.
To me, freelancing a big story is one of the ultimate professional tests. Just from the concerns cited by daytonadan, he sounded prepared for the test, and I'll bet he turned in a good story.

 

700-word gamer? What's that?

 

Hejira: that's the space you should allow for tomorrow's msu-ky gamer.

 

Write the gamer for the print edition and tell the eds you have more for a web piece. even if they don't want the extra web stuff because of budget, some eds may remember your hustle.

 

For freelancers, there is no better copy than clean copy.

 

Heh.

Really, by the time all the bracket racket subsides, the Sunday championship games are almost an afterthought. But that was a heckuva game.

 

Rick Reilly talked about this when he wrote about Jack Nicklaus winning his last Master's. Reilly said (and I've never forgotten this) that he took the advice of Jimmy Breslin: The bigger the story, the smaller you've got to get. While everyone was at the graveside pouring superlatives and purple prose over JFK's burial, Breslin was off interviewing the gravedigger.
And I also follow the advice of my grandfather: You think long, you think wrong.