For the ex-journalists here...

[PEteacher]

Just thought I'd start a discussion for those of us not in journalism to reflect on your previous career...

1. What do you miss most about sports journalism?
2. What do you miss least?
3. What do you do now?
4. Are you happier with your new career?

My answers:
1. The adrenaline rush around deadline time.
2. The hours.
3. My SJ handle says
4. Much happier. My wife and kids are happier, so I am too.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

Just thought I'd start a discussion for those of us not in journalism to reflect on your previous career...

1. What do you miss most about sports journalism?

Occasionally, I'll turn on the Super Bowl or the NCAA Tournament or something like that and I think, "If this was a few years ago, I would be there." but that doesn't happen very often. Maybe a few times a year...

2. What do you miss least?

The uncertainty of the future. I spent two years waking up most days wondering if that was going to be the day that my career ended and that there was probably little to nothing I could do about it. That's no way to live.

I never had any problem dropping everything to chase big news, but what would **** me off would be when I would have to walk out of a family function to try to get a quote about the signing of a fourth tight end who wouldn't be on the roster in a week.

3. What do you do now? Sell computer equipment to the government/military.

4. Are you happier with your new career? Yes.

 

[bpoindexter]

PE, great idea for a discussion. Now, since I'm currently still in sports journalism (well, today anyway), I can't take part. But I'm going to check back frequently hoping to see some other people's thoughts. I'm most interested in what others have to say.

 

[LongTimeListener]

1. Sitting in the press box. Maybe it doesn't strike anyone, but sportswriters are a pretty hilarious group of people to work around and hang out with.

2. Feeding the beast. Right now, "deadline" means something is due in a couple of weeks. I can plan the rest of my life and fit work into it.

3. Proposal and technical writing for a couple of different groups, one a company that provides government services and the other a trade magazine. Both part-time as independent contractor, a route I highly recommend for anyone whose spouse has benefits at his/her workplace.

4. I don't have a career. I have a job. And I suspect it will be this way for the rest of my working life. Because it's a job and not a career, I am happier with my entire life.

 

[micropolitan guy]

1. What do you miss most about sports journalism?

The knowledge that I knew more (on my beats) than the average Joe. Press-box banter. Road trips. Talks with sources.

2. What do you miss least?

The nights. The weekends. The petty complaints from readers. The times I missed my kid's games and activities to cover other kids' games and activities.


3. What do you do now?

Still in a sports-related field, working for a sports team.

4. Are you happier with your new career?

Oh yeah.

 

[MileHigh]

1. The thrill of deadline. Beating the competition on a story. Putting out a product that matters.

2. The politics and backbiting.

3. Just hit the layoff line (though still getting paid with a severance package coming). So, looking.

4. Thought I was at a solid place, but nothing is guaranteed in any field these days.

 

[93Devil]

I miss high school football sidelines on Friday nights. I miss carrying on in the news room.

I do not miss working ****ty hours for ****ty pay or working on holidays just because some ****er wants to run a 5K on Thankgiving morning or kickoff the girls basketball season on Thanksgiving night.

I never, ever want to feel job insecurity again. Never.

Education

Much happier.

 

[mediaguy]

Good thread.

 

[Jim_Carty]

1. The people around Big Ten football and basketball, of all types.

2. Seeing my friends laid off so media companies could maintain profit margins.

3. Attorney.

4. Yes.

 

[J-School Blue]

1.) More than anything I miss working in a newsroom, and the kind of people I used to work with. There's a feeling of being plugged into what's going on, even if most of what you're doing is just keeping an eye on the wire services from Podunk, Nowhere, and bull****ting about it with some very smart, sharp people.

2) ****ty pay, terrible hours, having to live in the middle of nowhere for the pleasure of doing it.

3) Claims investigation, for property insurance at the moment. It has more in common with journalism than one might initially think. Lots of interviewing, a good deal of report writing (albeit in much dryer style). Tons of research and fact-checking. Each case has a "story" and facts to uncover, even if it's for very different purposes.

4) Yes, I'm happier. Though the people I work with are surprised. Reporting sounds cool to people who've never done it. I miss the more creative, "writerly" aspects of journalistic writing, but that's all I miss. While I'm considering grad school, it'll be something that augments my current career (law or possibly a master's in library science that's heavy on archivist stuff). I don't particularly want to work in the media again, especially given how uncertain the industry is right now.

 

[JJHHI]

1. MISS MOST: Very little. I still get many of the perks, such as cracking jokes with the hacks in the press box and being around sports. Seriously, I miss it a lot less than I thought I would.

2. MISS LEAST: Filling in on the desk every time somebody or their kid got sick, covering miserably ****ty high school events (i.e. 7-0 tennis matches or terrible volleyball or soccer mismatches), miserably long Legion baseball games and basketball doubleheaders.

3. WHAT NOW?: SID/Marketing at the NAIA school I used to cover.

4. HAPPIER?: Immeasurably.

 

[McNuggetsMan]

1. What do you miss most about sports journalism?
Having sports be part of my career. Getting paid to, in part, watch major college football was thrilling. I loved Saturdays in the fall.

2. What do you miss least?
The prep parents. The pay.

3. What do you do now?
Management consultant.

4. Are you happier with your new career?
I am much happier with my pay. I am much happier with the life it provides my family. But it doesn't match up to the thrills of writing college football on deadline.

 

[azom]

1. What do you miss most about sports journalism?
The rush of a good story. The idea that, every day, my coworkers and I put out a tangible product -- you could look at it at the end of the day and say, "That's what we did today," for better or worse. The camaraderie of the profession.

2. What do you miss least?
All the things a corporation does to make you feel like less of a human and more like a commodity: low pay, slashed benefits, wage freezes. I would have stayed in the business if I could have afforded it.

3. What do you do now?
I went back to school and got my master's degree. Now I teach journalism writing classes as a faculty member at a decently sized public university.

4. Are you happier with your new career?
Depends on how you define happiness. I always wanted to be a sports journalist, and a big part of me misses that. But I don't think I will ever get back into it full-time. I've got a great job now, and even though teaching doesn't really have that day-to-day satisfaction or the adrenaline rushes of journalism, I'm finding little things I like about teaching that let me know I made the right decision.

 

[expendable]

I hope to contribute to this thread soon. I'm just marking it so I don't forget about it, but I'm sure I know what I will and will not miss.

 

[TyWebb]

1. What do you miss most about sports journalism?
Those rare nights when I get to watch an amazing game/performance and then get to tell people about it through writing. Coming in ahead of deadline and taking those five or so minutes to take a deep breath and enjoy the high of writing under pressure.

2. What do you miss least?
The crap pay, the lost weekends, the lack of upward progression, the feeling that most of what I write doesn't matter anyway.

3. What do you do now?
I write marketing material for a children's hospital.

4. Are you happier with your new career?
Considerably, even though I have to tuck my shirt in every day now.

 

[playthrough]

93Devil's list is pretty similar to mine...

1. What do you miss most about sports journalism?
I miss Friday nights and all the banter with fellow reporters afterward. I miss some pro assignments but more for the "being there" than the actual work. I do miss the newsroom but really only one or two of the five I worked in were fun places.

2. What do you miss least?
Dog**** preps and the Thanksgiving 5K. The postgame scrums at the pros.

3. What do you do now?
Produce a league website.

4. Are you happier with your new career?
Yes. I can still scratch my writing itch in other ways.

 

[SellOut]

Think this is a great thread, but I'm wondering if there should be an addendum to whether you chose to leave the field or was it a matter of necessity (laid off, move, etc.). Wondering if the way someone leaves affects how they view their current situation. Or I could be completely full of crap. Or both. I have a friend who chose to leave in a fit of frustration and the grass wasn't greener. Have another who was forced to leave and made his peace with it and moved on to better things.

 

[KJIM]

1. What do you miss most about sports journalism?
2. What do you miss least?
3. What do you do now?
4. Are you happier with your new career?

1. The other writers. Having a clue about hockey.

2. I was freelance (had a different journalism job by day) and I don't miss the hit-and-miss aspect of that.

3. I'm a month into an AmeriCorps gig, doing communications and information gathering for flood relief. It's still a lot of research and writing.

4. I'm not in a career job yet; I'm still in security clearance for the foreign service. Hopefully, by this time next year, I am running an embassy. But in the meantime, I am far more fulfilled in this job than I was in either my 10-year journalism work and my 10-year sports writing worlds (which ran concurrently). And I have a supervisor who, on a daily basis, says "you're awesome," which has never happened in ANY job I've held -- which transcends journalism. (I'm not exaggerating. It's 11 a.m. as I write this, and my supervisor has already told me this once today.)

 

[Mizzougrad96]

I will say this... As much as I love my current job, it doesn't exactly give me the stories to tell that my last one did...

But any profession where you have to live in constant fear of losing your job is not one I want to be in... Granted, no job is perfect and plenty of professions have layoffs, but at most places it doesn't hang over your head like it does in journalism.

 

[Bristol Whipped]

1. What do you miss most about sports journalism?
2. What do you miss least?
3. What do you do now?
4. Are you happier with your new career?

1. The hardest part is that I'm still in the same community, so I regularly see the paper and think, "Here's how I would have done it." I was the sports editor there for nine years, so it takes a while to completely let go of a section you ran for that long.
2. The travel to high school playoff games and ridiculously late Friday nights during football season. The low pay for a lot of work, and the feeling that all that effort was never going to be enough to satisfy anyone.
3. In January I started working media relations for a small local college.
4. Absolutely. Better pay and a far better working environment. We get a ridiculous amount of vacation time, I'm already slated to receive a raise in September and my bosses have told me several times to let them know if I start to feel burned out. I have a hard time explaining to them that what I'm doing is far less hectic than my previous position.

Anyone who is looking to get out of newspapers, I recommend finding a marketing / media relations job at a small college or juco. The skills that were taken for granted at my old job (speedy, accurate writing; photography skills; page design skills; organization) make my new employers giddy.