a mindset shift?

[novelist_wannabe]

I think it was on previous incarnations of this board -- seems like years ago, but it's a little fuzzy in my mind -- that preps jobs were widely panned on here as the place people went who couldn't hack it at higher-profile beats. I remember mucho vitriol on the subject. Now, though, there doesn't seem to be the same rush to denigrate this particular sect of our work. Have we mellowed? Are we more enlightened. Or, are there simply more preps writers posting on here than in the so-called old day.

 

[ogre]

Since Im new here, I can't really answer the question of whether there has been a shift. I will say that I would rather work college or pro beats than preps. It's just more fun for me. There are plenty of folks that can't hack it on that side of the aisle as well.

 

[rgd]

There's a lot of very skilled reporters out there who happen to cover preps. I'm under the impression that landing a major college or pro beat job requires a lot of skill and a little bit of luck, if you consider that to be an ideal job.

There's probably a ton of prep writers out there who are just as skilled but haven't been as "lucky." There's also a fair number of prep writers who consider themselves to be the lucky ones. After all, a prep writer gets to sleep in his or her own bed every night.

 

[Superman]

Just a matter of numbers. There are a ton more prep writers in this country than college/pro beat writers.

A guy on the prep beat can be a fantastic writer, but many of us in the bum**** nowhere markets find that you won't land that "break" until you take those clips and put some years in at a bigger place to get noticed by the right people. Even if it means that they keep covering preps for just another few years.

And then there are the good, young writers who think they're owed the world by the third year out of school and develop poor attitudes.

And then there are people like me: young and testing the waters until we find something on which to focus our careers.