For $40.....

[Roscablo]

I also worked a popular national event once a few years later and had several papers that had teams there that I covered. There was definitely some crossover there, but I was more experienced then and with the nature of the beast definitely had to tailor each story, even if it was the same game or whatever, to the paper I was writing it for. So they were not the same in any way.

 

[dixiehack]

I was the anti-double dipper. I’d write up a story for the daily paper I worked for and then have to rework the lede and quotes for Podunk County because we also owned the weekly there.

 

[Della9250]

I'm amazed at how much double-dipping goes on now, even between competing papers. Writer writers for Paper A, does 450-500 words, ships it, then rewrites Paper B, with a new lede, a few other changes and maybe a couple different quotes. That never would have flown back in the day.

Speaking of the day, I just (thankfully) missed out on the couplers era, but did get the joy of the TRS80, which at the time seemed very high-tech (there's one being used in the plane in a late scene in Midnight Run, which made it very legit to me). And then eventually I had to deal with searching for a Panera Bread, which were for a while the only places with free wireless. And you had to hope they still had the modem on.

I think there is also the fact that if it helps your product to have more local, you have to play that game with the lack of staff / stringers available. If it means having an extra story or two it's not that bad.

 

[MTM]

I double dipped for my daily and a nearby weekly, where I worked previously. I was not a sports reporter but would cover football and the SE would assign me to games I could do for both. Like others, there would be a fresh lead and local quotes, but the guts and play-by-play would be the same in both.

 

[sgreenwell]

Side note - Petition to change topic title to "For Forty Dollars More..." in keeping with SJ tradition of references that the kids love.

 

[playthrough]

I was in awe many years ago watching a stringer friend cover the state cross country meet for about 12 outlets. Get results, grab the top runner, send a few graphs. Papers were from far and wide so there weren't any conflicts, plus it was cross country -- editors just wanted the agate and to make sure their local kid got quoted. And it was long enough ago that you'd get decent money for it. Yep, Rich the stringer had it all figured out.

 

[Brian J Walter]

At the bottom of a pond just off the 18th green at PGA National in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., there lies one of those "advanced" direct-connect thingamabobs that came after the acoustic couplers. It shorted out my TRS-80 as I was putting the finishing touches on a 30- or 40-inch monster* for a special Sunday PGA Championship spread. Watching that sonofabitch slip quietly beneath the surface ... after I'd rewritten and then dictated the piece to the desk ... remains one of the more pleasurable moments of my sportswriting career.


*And, yes, it was monstrous in more ways than its size.

I could not possibly have happened to me. The TRS80s that I worked with would only hold about 18 inches of copy. I would’ve had to send that story in three takes. At an NFL or MLB game you would have to send your notebook before you could even start your gamer.

 

[User 11148]

I could not possibly have happened to me. The TRS80s that I worked with would only hold about 18 inches of copy. I would’ve had to send that story in three takes. At an NFL or MLB game you would have to send your notebook before you could even start your gamer.

Interesting. We never ran into that ... they were slow (and unreliable) as ****, but they'd hold plenty of copy.

 

[Brian J Walter]

Interesting. We never ran into that ... they were slow (and unreliable) as ****, but they'd hold plenty of copy.

Our overlords were not known for their spending. I’m guessing the came with different memory sizes. Ours were probably like 8k.

 

[HanSenSE]

I started at weekly, but on Fridays in the fall I'd do a gamer for our daily mothership. I'd ship a copy of that back to my office and on Monday morning would rewrite the upper part of it, make it more featury/analytical, pointing at the next game.

At my last stop, given how far some of our teams had to travel in the playoffs, was always happy to swap spit with another paper in another area, especially if one of their teams was playing one of ours.

 

[Flip Wilson]

I triple-dipped a high school game once. Fort Worth (Texas) Everman was playing at Waco Midway, and I covered it for the Waco Tribune-Herald, Fort Worth Star-Telegram and Dallas Times Herald (RIP).

 

[Typist Clerk]

I could not possibly have happened to me. The TRS80s that I worked with would only hold about 18 inches of copy. I would’ve had to send that story in three takes. At an NFL or MLB game you would have to send your notebook before you could even start your gamer.

You had to buy the extra memory. I think it came with 8K but you could add another 32K or something. Plenty of room for a bunch of stories.

 

[Typist Clerk]

I was in awe many years ago watching a stringer friend cover the state cross country meet for about 12 outlets. Get results, grab the top runner, send a few graphs. Papers were from far and wide so there weren't any conflicts, plus it was cross country -- editors just wanted the agate and to make sure their local kid got quoted. And it was long enough ago that you'd get decent money for it. Yep, Rich the stringer had it all figured out.

I’m impressed. Have covered XC for three papers, shooting pix for one as well, but 12? Yikes.

 

[Cosmo]

I regularly contacted outlets that covered road teams when I covered Liberty because it was an easy way to make extra money. Was not always easy for 7 p.m. football games, but look, the Wilmington paper only needs like 12 inches and a quote for a Delaware State football story anyway, and I always tried to nab the opposing coach on the field as it was. Ended up being a decent side hustle.

 

[Brian J Walter]

Covering for multiple outlets in different markets is fine. Or covering for a daily and a weekly in the same family, also fine. But I'll see guys with bylines from the same game in two papers that both come out on my street but are in no way related. I know the talent pool is shallow, but once upon a time that would never have flown. Do people really care that little now?

 

[Slacker]

Covering for multiple outlets in different markets is fine. Or covering for a daily and a weekly in the same family, also fine. But I'll see guys with bylines from the same game in two papers that both come out on my street but are in no way related. I know the talent pool is shallow, but once upon a time that would never have flown. Do people really care that little now?

When the newspaper industry started crashing hard 15 years ago, the suits (yo, Fredrick!) were amazing swift at abandoning so many rules that, for decades, they had insisted were the cornerstones of journalism, carved in granite.

 

[BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo]

I was in awe many years ago watching a stringer friend cover the state cross country meet for about 12 outlets. Get results, grab the top runner, send a few graphs. Papers were from far and wide so there weren't any conflicts, plus it was cross country -- editors just wanted the agate and to make sure their local kid got quoted. And it was long enough ago that you'd get decent money for it. Yep, Rich the stringer had it all figured out.

I know someone who used to make thousands of dollars every August stringing the Little League East Regionals for every paper that had a team in the tournament. For all I know he still is, b/c I'm pretty sure our local team didn't get bylined coverage until it got to Williamsport this year (I could be wrong, but in my jaded wizened age, I'm so sick of Little League being even more cynically manipulative than the pros that I try not to pay any attention at all). Also know at least two people who covered a minor league team and made a small killing on the side by also covering the visitors for their papers. I assume that gig is gone now b/c I find it hard to believe papers do road coverage of their minor league teams. Or maybe even home coverage.

 

[playthrough]

When the newspaper industry started crashing hard 15 years ago, the suits (yo, Fredrick!) were amazing swift at abandoning so many rules that, for decades, they had insisted were the cornerstones of journalism, carved in granite.

I remember the early days of SJ.com and the debates we'd have over whether small ads on the front pages of some papers were a massive affront to journalism or just a smart new revenue stream.

 

[Slacker]

I remember the early days of SJ.com and the debates we'd have over whether small ads on the front pages of some papers were a massive affront to journalism or just a smart new revenue stream.

"Just give everything a fast edit, and we'll fix anything else on the proofs."

"Don't worry about proofing entire pages. Just check the big type and the display stuff."

"No need to backread anymore. Slot editors, check heds and ledes, then push the pages through."

"No time to read that story. Just send it through now, and we'll get some eyes on it for the final."

"Well, we're running out of time. Just blow the pictures up real big."

"Remember, folks, work smarter, not harder!"

 

[MileHigh]

I know someone who used to make thousands of dollars every August stringing the Little League East Regionals for every paper that had a team in the tournament. For all I know he still is, b/c I'm pretty sure our local team didn't get bylined coverage until it got to Williamsport this year (I could be wrong, but in my jaded wizened age, I'm so sick of Little League being even more cynically manipulative than the pros that I try not to pay any attention at all). Also know at least two people who covered a minor league team and made a small killing on the side by also covering the visitors for their papers. I assume that gig is gone now b/c I find it hard to believe papers do road coverage of their minor league teams. Or maybe even home coverage.

I did the Little League thing in August for years. Before ESPN completely took it over and started televising the regional finals, then later the regional semifinals as well. And when there were only four regionals in the country. Now, the regionals are so watered down to the point they're virtually meaningless.