Becoming a sports journalist usually comes in stages…Step one is when you figure out you can no longer hit the jumper, make contact with the curve ball or find the net…So you turn to something next best, covering the game…And with that you find some inherent problems…How am I going to do this job? , for starters…<\/p>\n
It was with that in mind that we asked\u00a0Jessica Camerato<\/a> of BasketballInsiders.com<\/em>, Marcus Smart<\/a> of the Boston Celtics and Bruins defenseman\u00a0Zach Trotman<\/a>\u00a0to join us at the Boston University Sports Journalism Seminar Series… Exploring the question from both sides can sound easier than it is…You’re certainly going to be nervous the first time you walk into any<\/em> locker room but with the advice of these pros, you’ll come away with a job well done…<\/p>\n Be confident (or at least, look that way) when you make eye contact….You’d be surprised that the players you are nervous about talking to might also have questions….Think of it this way, “you’re the new kid on the block”…”I cover the Celtics but I also cover the visiting team, said Camerato, so when a new player comes in I make sure I just introduce myself and have a conversation and find a commonality…It’s just establishing, I know you’re here, you know I’m here, maybe down the road we’ll have to work together”…Doesn’t sound that different than meeting a new friend does it?<\/p>\n That all assumes you’re not star struck and can formulate a well thought out question…essential in the business you want to be a part of…Camerato went on to warn “There are so many ways to ask a question, if you put the player on the defensive, that interview will be terrible.”…Trotman agrees, “Try not to put it (the question) in a negative way. \u00a0Obviously the player had good intentions but they went wrong. \u00a0Try to not phrase it so aggressively.”<\/p>\n Locker rooms are places of business, sometimes with many people milling around, sometime just a few…Don’t think for a minute the players don’t notice who is there and even more importantly, who wrote(said) what…They may not have heard it directly but that doesn’t mean it won’t get back to them…”It’s hard not<\/em> to see, added Smart, you might not have seen it but somebody close to you did and they tell you…it’s addicting (social media), you can’t stop watching and sometimes as a player, it can affect you.”…<\/p>\n Each stop along the way brings with it a separate set of circumstances…High schoolers can have that deer in the headlights look….college players perhaps, can’t explain how they did something that comes so natural to them and then there’s the professionals who do this for a living and the “sparkle” just doesn’t shine as brightly for them as it might for you (at the beginning)…We’ll deal with the media relations part of the equation later in the semester!<\/p>\n Don’t ask for autographs, no “selfies” or photo bombs and keep in mind, they are people too…Get in, get out and always remember if you’re in the Bruins dressing room, warns Trotman, \u00a0“Don’t step on the logo!”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Becoming a sports journalist usually comes in stages…Step one is when you figure out you can no longer hit the jumper, make contact with the curve ball or find the net…So you turn to something next best, covering the game…And with that you find some inherent problems…How am I going to do this job? , […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":901,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/901"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":273,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272\/revisions\/273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}