“I wrote maybe 14, 15 stories throughout the game”…What, how many?…”Some of them were 5, 600 hundred words, others after the game were in the thousands”…
Such is the life of a modern day beat writer, in this case Zack Cox of NESN, who covers the New England Patriots (and was referring to February 5th at Super Bowl LI)…
If I were to relate that story to legendary beat reporters Bob Ryan of the Globe (Red Sox, Celtics), The Patriot Ledger’s Ron Hobson (Patriots) or Joe Fitzgerald, former beat writer for the Boston Herald, they would cringe…
Now maybe it was the enormity of the game/day but still, the days of watching the game and writing a game story, even editing a (video) package for the news or gathering soundbites for post game radio are long gone…It’s constant now and even though viewers are watching the game or listening to the game, they want more…They want the person covering the game to fill them in with the little details that are going on right now, details the viewers can’t see or hear…
Cox joined Phil Perry of Comcast SportsNet recently at the Boston University Sports Journalism Seminar Series and while I expected to hear about long(er) hours , tweeting and learning to deal with Bill Belichick, I was floored by the amount of work that comes out of these guys on a daily basis, in season or out…
Beat reporting season don’t end anymore and the competition is rough…Baseball plays a hundred and sixty two regular season games, football, but 16…That’s a big difference and the physical grind isn’t close…But the requirements are pretty much the same no matter what the day…
And an added duty now, almost an obligation for any beat writer is to be an “opinion maker”…Fans know the facts, they’ve seen the game…They want to know what you think about it…They also want you to agree with them…”It’s difficult to write opinion well, mentioned Perry, but in a lot of ways it’s harder to go out and find a story and make that work for you. You have to go, you have to talk to people, you have to make phone calls, you have to develop relationships. There’s something to be said for that.”…
Another issue that has changed with the landscape is breaking stories…once upon a time, sports editors (and news directors) expected their beat reporters to be first with any kind of news…Not so much the case anymore…”Whether you’re a team or an agent of a coach, said Perry, it’s so much easier to call a national guy and get your message out to the rest of the world”… Cox added, “It’s almost a bit of a surprise when you see someone locally breaks it before the big time reporters. They’re so plugged in”…Needless to say the local reporters hate getting beat but it happens more often than not…
It may not be the plumb job, the higher rung on the ladder, but beat reporting is still the best way for fans to be connected…
Leave it to Bill Belichick to sum things up…”No Days Off”, “No Days Off”, “No Days Off”….
10 Comments
Eric Getzoff posted on March 8, 2017 at 9:31 pm
Modern day beat reporters fascinate me. The amount of time they’re working (seemingly always), and the various types of platforms they work on (of course writing, but also tweeting, going on as a guest of a radio show, doing tv hits) boggles my mind. I believe it was Bob Ryan who said that working on a beat is not what it used to be. Well, actually, anybody could say that and it would still be true.
Note: I was not at the Seminar this past week.
As a beat reporter, you’re never off the clock. It’s not a timesheet job or a 2-10 pm job. It’s a “I don’t care how long it takes, cover the hell out of this team”. There are no days off. No Sunday of “I’m turning all electronics off, I just want to un-connect”. It can’t happen and it doesn’t happen. Check every beat reporter’s twitter account and I bet they haven’t missed a day of tweeting in months.
Even through all of the tweeting, which is the main difference between covering a beat now and back 30 years ago (as well as other social media), I bet you could go without tweeting and still be great at your job- if you have great, great articles with insights that nobody else has. That’s all readers really care about with a beat reporter and what makes a beat reporter great – something new that nobody else has. Nobody really cares about a tweet “Brady converts 3rd down. 1st and goal from the 2, Pats down 3 with :30 to play”. Either we’re watching the game or we can get that info from the million other beat reporters who waste their time with game updates. In fact, most team twitter accounts provide updates, so why waste your time and energy doing the same? For twitter followers? Please, spare me the online popularity.
The strategy is to use your energy towards one particular focus, to be the best at that which you will be known for. Forget the in-game twitter updates, if you’re going to tweet at all. Use that time to dissect a play: look at players and coaches’ reactions, feel the energy of the crowd and ask those questions in a post-game interview that you would not have seen had you been tweeting the same thing every other guys does. Or focus more on in-depth features. Adam Himelsbach of the Boston Globe had a fantastic one about Isaiah Thomas’ ritual on the night of an off-day before a game. That’s the type of insght a beat reporter should be reporting on.
There are other specializations, too. Adam Rubin, who used to cover the Mets for ESPN New York (he gave up the post this year) was creative on twitter, tweeting memes relating to situations with the Mets. He had an “oh yeah” and “oh no” meme tweet from the Kool-aid man whenever something positive or negative happened to the Mets. He didn’t just give you the information -he made it fun. It was one of the reasons he was one of the most popular, and thought of as the best, beat writers by Mets fans.
I believe game stories should be forgotten about by beat writers. A game story now provides one thing I can’t see in a box score – quotes. I can find the play-by-play of the game online. If there’s a fight or altercation then write a news story. Provide the quotes under a bolded section called Notes & Quotes. I believe beat writers should find interesting story angles – the Isaiah one a great example – and on days they can’t then write an opinion piece.
But that’s where the PR comes into place. You write a bad-tasting article on the coach or player, and you may not get the one-on-one interview you got before. It’s a tough rope to jump.
Another nuance of being a beat reporter is the immediacy of an article after the game – a product of the internet. As Zach Cox of NESN said, he wrote upwards of 15 stories during the Superbowl. Maybe that number would be less if he were hitting the late-night/early morning newspaper deadline, maybe not. But the point is you’re writing now during the game, instead of after the game.
If I were a beat writer, I couldn’t do this. Which is one the reasons being a beat guy isn’t on my job radar. I prefer to focus on one thing at a time. To watch a game, dissect and analyze it while writing seems like way too much at once. You’re missing some action during the game and have to keep looking up at the tv for a replay while, yes, writing. Let’s also add in the fact of travel for guys on the baseball, basketball and hockey beat. At first going from city to city may seem like fun. ‘Wow, I get to see all these cities’. But after a while where’s the rhythm? 9am on a day game feels like 2pm on a night game the day before. Which felt like 4pm two days before that in the Mountain time zone.
The travel part hasn’t changed, but all the rest has. The beat game is a new game then it used be, even five years ago. You can thank twitter for that.
Shelby Reardon posted on March 14, 2017 at 6:38 pm
I believe beat reporting is the heart and soul of sports journalism. Perhaps I’m biased because that’s what I’d love to do, but I still believe it. Beat reporting is boots to the ground, it’s dedication and sticking your neck out. It’s breaking news and investigating with the right questions. It’s long hours and producing tons of content. It’s telling the story and analyzing it. No it isn’t glamorous all the time but it’s where the everyday stories come from.
Just as we’ve discussed broadcasts becoming more opinionated, and just as Phil said, beat reporting is becoming more analytical too. Due to easy access of apps, box scores, or texting a friend asking for updates, people don’t need a game story. Obviously it still needs to be written, but that’s not what people look for. What are the major takes of the game? What do the highlights mean? Who stepped up? What does this mean? To answer those questions is the job of the beat reporter.
They can answer these questions because of their incredible familiarity with the team and the players and the coaches. Creating and building this relationship is key to the success of a beat reporter. I honestly think people skills should be a prime thing to have on a resume when applying to be a beat reporter because it’s THAT important in my opinion. That relationship gets you detailed answers to the good questions and if you have to ask bad, difficult, or touchy questions they are more likely to answer or at least gently shrug it off without being mad because they know you well.
That being said, you aren’t friends with the players or coaches or staff. Your relationship has a small conflict of interest: it allows you to do your job. And while you should do your best to keep that relationship, that doesn’t mean a beat reporter should be too nice, or cater to that team.
Beat reporting does have a danger of becoming biased because of the closeness to the team and constantly being around them and updated by them, but I don’t think that occurs very often.
No matter how difficult it may and how many hours it may require, I still want to be a sports beat reporter.
Channing Curtis posted on March 14, 2017 at 8:05 pm
The 24 hour news cycle has permanently changed the job of reporters. There aren’t many places that this change is more evident than in sports reporting. Beat reporters have a hard life. Yeah sure they get to cover amazing games and tend to build better relationships with the team they cover than their national counterparts but they essentially have no life outside of their beat.
In the seminar with Zach Cox and Phil Perry, we got a first-hand account of what a day in the life of a beat reporter is like. When Cox mentioned how many stories he writes before, during and after covering a game it sounded surreal. Then I thought about it. I thought about how many times a day I get a notification from my favorite news outlet about the Dallas Cowboys or Mavericks. I probably read at least 5 stories a day about each of these teams even if it’s during the offseason. The men and women who report these stories are beat writers who work tirelessly so that fans like me can get their fix.
As a fan, I get the majority of my local team news from beat writers. They are the ones who give readers the most in depth looks at their respective teams. National reporters give people the news on trades and game analysis but it’s the local beat reporters who really let me know what’s going on with my team. Since they work day in and day out reporting on the same people, it only makes sense that they tend to have a better grasp of things.
I think this is why people want beat reporter’s opinions so much and value them more than a lot of the national reporters. It’s almost impossible to catch every moment of every sporting event going on so when a fan wants analysis of their team of course they turn to the local reporter. I am much more likely to trust the opinion of Clarence Hill, a Dallas Cowboys beat writer for the Dallas Morning News, over the opinions of someone on Sports Center.
Curtis Stoychoff posted on March 15, 2017 at 4:20 pm
I remember the fall of my junior year when I was in JO514 and I shadowed Chris Price, Patriots beat writer. The thing he said that has stuck with me the most is when he talked about what it takes to be a beat reporter. How you’ll miss birthdays and holidays and anniversaries because you’re away covering your team, but also how it’s worth it. That’s a big commitment any beat writer has to make and I admire them for it. The life doesn’t sound like an easy one, for sure.
Price and I also talked about covering the Super Bowl, two years ago when the Patriots beat the Seahawks. He talked about how he was at the game and started, stopped and rewrote, and stopped and rewrote again, his game recap story. When the Patriots were down 10 in the 4th quarter he started writing the story with a certain ending in mind. Then when they came back and were up four, he started writing a new one. Jermaine Kearse’s catch? Yup, another story was born. But we all know how that ended. I feel like this is the perfect example of the life of a beat reporter covering a game. If you try and get ahead by writing a game recap before the game is actually over, you may very well end up writing five, six, seven different versions.
That’s a big difference from Zack Cox and his 14 or 15 stories that he wrote throughout this Super Bowl. Maybe their assignments were different, but even so, I think this shows how much things have evolved even within the past few years. Or maybe it’s just the difference between the new guard and old(er) guard of beat reporters.
I can see where Phil Perry is coming from when he says that it is difficult to write opinion well. If a beat reporter is writing a game recap, he or she is simply reporting on the game and saying what happened. With this new added territory of being expected to provide your opinion as well as the facts, beat reporters are putting themselves out there more. When someone writes something purely fact based, a reader can disagree with the facts, but they can’t really say too much about the writer. But when you add your opinion, it opens the beat reporter up to much more scrutiny since he or she is saying, “This is what I believe.”
In the “Why being a ‘homer’ could be bad for sports broadcasting” article in The Calgary Journal, Pat Steinberg, radio host of the FAN 960 is quoted saying that when you cover a specific team you have to be slightly biased in order to appease your audience. I get this to an extent, no one wants to hear their local broadcaster bashing the team they root for. But at the same time, if the Patriots are truly playing poorly, I’m not going to stop listening to someone for simply telling the truth. The article talked about how this was an issue for the Flames because year after year of not making the playoffs, the local media was so soft on the team that the real issues were never really publicized or corrected.
I think this seminar was important because it showed us what is required of someone in a position many of us may soon find ourselves in. From finding the balance between covering a team fairly and accurately, to constantly tweeting out what you’re reporting on, the world of beat reporting is definitely a grind. Working long hours for little pay (I guess this depends where and who you’re working for) may not sound enticing, but the stories you’ll have to tell from being at the big games, or even in the locker room afterwards, will hopefully make up for it.
David Souza posted on March 15, 2017 at 5:54 pm
Today, beat reporting has become so much more than simply writing a game story. And while tweeting and packaging together video and audio have become vital aspects of the job, relationships are still at the core of beat reporting.
I think back to Phil Perry’s anecdote where he had to deal with the blowback of an unhappy Brandon Browner after a story ran with a quote that Browner took offense to. While it is great and needed for a reporter to have a diversified skill set in terms of writing, social media, and multimedia, none of it is possible without first establishing solid relationships with the team and people you are covering. With Browner refusing to engage with the media after his dustup with Perry, no amount of journalistic prowess can draw the content out of a subject with whom you have a poor relationship with.
Beat reporting has also come along way from the days of just having game stories. With the 24-hour news cycle constantly needing to be filled, reporters can no longer rest on their laurels after a game is over and a story is done. Particularly in football when a game is merely a fraction of what occurs in a given week in the NFL, the ability to write often is invaluable.
This particular aspect of the NFL has always given me pause: what do you write about when there isn’t a game? Both Perry and Zack Cox spoke of the ease that comes with writing a number of stories in the days and weeks where no games are played for New England. This ability to find stories and to turn almost every idea for a story you have into a piece makes football beat writers unique, compared to a sport like baseball where all the on the field action is occurring almost everyday. While the amount of work may seem gigantic, the ability to write a wide variety of story types makes it both enjoyable and, according to Perry and Cox, easier.
Breaking news will always be a significant part of journalism. Unfortunately, that job has become much easier for national reporters, whose words are more far reaching than a local beat writer. Today for example, Dont’a Hightower resigned with New England. And while a local reporter like Mike Reiss, or Cox, or Perry could have been given the opportunity to break the story, Hightower’s agent went through Adam Schefter to get the message out. This knee-jerk reaction to give information to the farthest-reaching reporter makes sense from a professional standpoint, but hurts other beat guys who are around the team everyday.
While a solution does not appear to be easily available, the best way around it I can think of is fostering those relationships. A reporter who has a close relationship with Hightower will definitely have a greater chance to receive the coveted information, however agents and teams are still likely to go to the Schefters of the world. I guess local reporters will have to continue to search for a way to be the go-to outlet for player/team news.
Jake Reiser posted on March 15, 2017 at 9:02 pm
We may have had break, but there are #NoDaysOff for To Be Frank!
https://youtu.be/qP4nZ8yuP7I
Chris Picher and Jarett Leonard posted on March 15, 2017 at 9:11 pm
Seminar Strategists Episode 5: https://soundcloud.com/jarett-leonard/seminar-strategists-episode-5-beat-reporting
Dylan Jones posted on March 15, 2017 at 9:15 pm
I’m not going to lie, hearing Zack Cox talk about how, on the average game day, he writes 14-15 stories made me cringe. Having to do all that without saying anything that will even slightly offend those you’re covering makes it even harder. Hearing about how beat reporters do so much grunt work- getting to know the players, developing relationships, having just come from a surprise on air appearance, etc.- and don’t even get to break the stories associated with their team, and sometimes even get reamed out by someone like Belichick, didn’t exactly paint a pretty picture of the life of a beat reporter.
Yet, what was great about having Zack Cox and Phil Perry talk to us last Thursday was that despite all the grunt work, and the hours, and the bad times, they both, as far as I could tell, loved their jobs. They worked their butts off to get where they are today, and now they get to do it for the teams they grew up watching and adoring. The hours and mass amount of work from what I can tell, whether it be from what they said and my personal experiences of hearing about the business, just seem to be part of the business.
One thing that has been a commonality not just with Zack and Phil but with every speaker we’ve heard from this semester is the love of the industry. If they didn’t, they would work somewhere else. The journalism industry, let alone the sports journalism industry, is one that people aren’t choosing because it’s sexy or necessarily makes a lot of money, but because it is something that they actually want to do. For all the hard work a beat reporter has to do, they get the moments like in Zach and Phil’s case getting to go to the Super Bowl, or getting to go on a duck boat parade and be celebrated like you’re on the team, and so on. It’s moments like that which make this job worth it, and make the long hours, tweets, on-air reporting,and 14-15 different articles (along with additional commitments such as the BU sports seminar class) worth it. I can comfortably say that if I end up with a job as a beat reporter, I’ll know it isn’t easy, but because of those moments, it’s worth it.
Maeisa Ingemi posted on March 16, 2017 at 1:53 pm
When I was growing up and wanting to be a sports writer, I didn’t think much of what went into it other than writing game stories and previews and the occasional feature. Writing more than double digit stories per game was certainly not in my agenda, but as I’ve spent more time around covering various beats, I’ve figured out that’s the way it is.
Hearing Zach Cox and Phil Perry talk about what goes into being a beat writer confirmed to me what I’ve learned working multiple beats over the past few years, and that’s that you really need to dedicate yourself to it. It’s doing things like showing up to Bill Belichick’s 8am Friday press conference that earns you more stories and more opportunities that other people sharing your beat don’t have.
The one thing about this seminar that personally spoke to me is both Zach and Phil began their careers, mostly working on the content desk of their respective networks before getting the chance to star on their own beat. This is something that meant a lot to me since I’m in a position coming out of college where I’ve been kind of afraid of taking a position like that, wanting to write right away, but hearing how they made it gave me more of an insight of how the industry really does work in that regard.
Daniel Choi posted on March 18, 2017 at 1:56 pm
As I listened to Zach Cox and Phil Perry speak about sports beat reporting, I visualized an infinite loop of short deadlines met with the aid of tension and creative passion.
The pressures are not enviable. It’s probably in your best interest to develop into a five-tool-player since communication roads are multiplying and nano-sizing. There’s short to long written form for print and digital. Timely tweet-sized reports. Appearances on television and web-streams. Radio and Podcasts. Not to forget all the work required to unearth material for the final product. Long days at team facilities. Traveling to where the team goes, or where the story lays. Waiting for hours to ask a handful of questions hoping for at least one or two noteworthy responses. Beat reporters then have to piece together their findings. Check for accuracy and maybe ponder ethical fork-roads. And then, maybe finally, scrap and add for revision until providing a careful polish before publication. Beat reporting is demanding.
But the unique and varied opportunities presented to beat reporters are sprayed with delightful envy-attractant. Beat reporters have direct access to entire rosters and coaching staffs, and other team personnel and relevant persons of public interest. Beat reporters aren’t parched for ideas. They shadow as an anthropologist of a sports franchise and even the wider industry. They have an opportunity to learn how to understand a culture to report their findings, and continuously provide new or evolved ones as teams change over time. They have the opportunity to shape the relationship between teams and their fans, acting in the official role of correspondent.
And there are stories everywhere. Popular players like Brady and Gronk are bombarded by local and national press. They’re availability is limited and narrow. But they nevertheless take the time to answer questions. You’re not going to miss a beat by wandering off elsewhere. You’ll hear an announcement about the time and place of their availability. No need to worry.
Instead, why not wander over to the less widely known player sitting in solitude? There’s more than one on every team. And access is much easier absent a multi-layered huddle of reporters. They have narrative wealth to share as well. Perhaps a player’s perspective on the game is intimately influenced by a favorite book or film. Maybe a throw-away question about a favorite hobby leads to insight about their approach to and view of the game. Perhaps on-and-off the field relationships, momentous life events and etcetera will end with a yelp of eureka. What was their journey? How has it shaped them? Why are their answers distinct in perspective from other players?
Football is a game of inches. (As is every sport. But in football, play-calls are sometimes made with the measurement of inches taken into account.) Competing for those inches is a grind. Aggression, tenacity and will are the leading requirements for winning an inch. The same is required for beat reporter’s seeking information. It’s a grind.
But football is also a game of angles. The angles taken and made available by a receiver’s route-running influences a quarterback’s decision. Linemen from both sides seek and exploit angles to break quicker into the backfield or buy more time for the offense. A large hole created by offensive linemen does not guarantee a proportionate gain of yards by the running back. Depending on which angles a running back takes, an expected gain of 5 moderate yards can result in a 30-yard surge, or a 25-yard opportunity loss.
Rambling away from that tangent…The angles seen and taken by beat reporters can sway the outcome of their final work. Mined information expected to produce a two minute read can transform into a page turning profile piece. An alluring, ambiguous quote can be used as economical bait for clicks. Or, perhaps a beat reporter will connect it to a larger pattern of dots and reveal uncharted depth.
My interest in beat reporting isn’t stymied by the bounty of heavy demands required to produce work worth consuming. It’s propelled forward by the opportunity for innovation – the chance to turn something mundane into a welcome disrupter that might forge forgotten connections.