{"id":328,"date":"2016-02-14T07:46:29","date_gmt":"2016-02-14T12:46:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/?p=328"},"modified":"2016-02-14T07:46:29","modified_gmt":"2016-02-14T12:46:29","slug":"the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/2016\/02\/14\/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly\/","title":{"rendered":"The Good, the Bad and the Ugly…"},"content":{"rendered":"

It may be the greatest western ever made but working in sports journalism can sometimes be just like the 1966 spaghetti western The Good, the Bad and the Ugly<\/a>…There are highs, there are lows and there are things about it that are just plain awful….Sure you might get to a Super Bowl, a World Series, a Stanley Cup or even an Olympics but all those won’t come without long, long hours and sacrifices along the way…<\/p>\n

When we chose to talk beat reporting at the Boston University sports journalism seminar series recently, \u00a0we were lucky enough to have three reporters who have experienced all three facets of the business…<\/p>\n

Doug Kyed<\/a> of NESN.com just came back from covering his second Super Bowl…That might seem like a plum assignment and while it’s the ultimate game each year, the team Doug covers on a regular basis, the New England Patriots, had lost two weeks earlier and the job just wasn’t the same…Tim Britton<\/a>, Boston Red Sox beat writer from the Providence Journal is getting ready to cover a season that could very well last nine months…And Adam Himmelsbach<\/a>of the Boston Globe is in the throes of a Boston Celtics playoff push that might see him travel to exotic cities like Indianapolis, Toronto, Cleveland and Oakland ,perhaps, before his season ends….<\/p>\n

Decide for yourself what part of all that is the good, the bad and the ugly but beat reporting is the staple of any media outlet…Fans can’t get enough of their local team and the reporters that follow them are widely read…<\/p>\n

Working during the game is a required skill now…One can’t just sit back and watch the game, get locker room quotes and file…As Himmelsbach pointed out “Live tweeting is something you can tell a follower they might not have known. \u00a0Keep them engaged with you. This encourages readers who actually want to read your stories.”… Kyed works long hours and sometimes is the last one out of the building, “I don’t want to leave until they’re(other reporters) leaving because I feel like I haven’t done enough.”…Britton tweets the entire (baseball) game and while his counterparts cover sports where there are definite time limits, he knows he always has time to recoup, “Baseball always gives you the bottom of the 9th”…Many a story has been re-written in those final three outs…<\/p>\n

Length of season plays a part in both the reporters mental health and ease of establishing relationships…So too does roster size interestingly…The Celtics carry 15 players but not everyone takes off their sweats…So, you’re talking to the same people every night…”It’s really bad, says Himmelsbach, you’re always focusing on only the people who actually play in the game.”…Kyed finds a different set of circumstances at Patriots camp…Only a handful of players are available and then there’s Bill Belichick…Britton and Himmelsbach admitted to watching their brethren try to elicit information. \u00a0“I like to hear creative ways journalists try to get stuff out of him”, said Himmelsbach…<\/p>\n

Learning the tools to work your way through the beat reporting minefield is certainly essential and important….But that first job, that first spot sets the tone for what kind of a reporter you eventually will be…”Everyone should cover high schools”, said Himmelsbach, to which Kyed heartily agreed…Britton added, “It helps you develop relationships”…Imagine, as Himmelsbach drew from his memory bank, “You have to find players who cost his team the game and he’s crying! \u00a0You have to talk to him by yourself”…We can’t teach that particular skill at the seminar series…<\/p>\n

It’s not always fancy hotels and five star restaurants on the road or popcorn eating hours in the Fenway\/Gillette\/TD Garden press box…It’s a grind…When people would ask me what it was like to work in Boston television sports I would remember red eye flights crossing the country in a seven game Celtics – Lakers series or working thirty straight days at the Atlanta Olympics from seven in the morning until one at night…”It sucked while it was happening but I wouldn’t have missed it for the world” I would tell them…Kyed said it succinctly, “I’m only friends with my friends for six months of the year”…<\/p>\n

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly….<\/p>\n

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It may be the greatest western ever made but working in sports journalism can sometimes be just like the 1966 spaghetti western The Good, the Bad and the Ugly…There are highs, there are lows and there are things about it that are just plain awful….Sure you might get to a Super Bowl, a World Series, […]<\/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\/328"}],"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=328"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":330,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328\/revisions\/330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}