Random journalism insight

Cutter's Log - Stardate 0 (Happy Birthday to ME!)
Current Song - When I Meet Them (Seals and Crofts)

I am 22 years old, and I am an unemployed sportswriter.

For the past four years, I have been tweaking my work as a web publisher and web sports writer (they call me an "online"). I don't get paid to do the thing I do. Parents, athletes, coaches and schools do not pay me to have me over at their athletic program and write stories about them. If anything, I have spent around $5,000, give or take a grand, on maintaining the site, traveling, supplies, and other miscallany. That's quite alright.

This calendar year, I experimented with writing news stories related to sports. It's like your front page news stories that have to do with front page stuff, and not about stats and scores.

Meanwhile, while I am doing that, newspaper after newspaper is writing at least one feature every couple of days. It's like they'll do a background check on each athlete in their coverage area and find something to make it a story. It's slowly becoming the norm, and unfortunately I don't have the resources to do that kind of background checking. These days, a newspaper sports section is a personal momento for a family.

They call the thing a NEWSpaper! Now its called a scrapbook sampler.

Unfortunately, I can't tell editors out there that I don't write for scrapbook collections. Then I won't be working for anyone. I don't know if they are trying to create a gridlock by doing these things.

But I propose a challenge to sports editors in northern Illinois.

Hire me. Then train me, and tame me.

Here's what I need work on:

1) Deadlines. I only served four months at a daily paper, and that was during the spring and summer sports season. Maintaining my own site meant that I made the rules and deadlines. I understand that major dailys have nightly deadlines of 9:30 to midnight. Fridays and Saturdays are even earlier. Some nights stories have to be written in 15 minutes or less. I've never had that experience before. Probably because I have no access to a laptop. Training me for deadlines is a must.

2) Trying to accept that any idea from me is a stupid one. At times, I have been bitter at the fact that something I wanted to do was rejected. Like columns. I might write something that could be newspaper smiley-face suicide. I suggest trying to vent my fustrations into a notebook or something. Because if I have an issue with something, I will write it and post it onto my website.

3) These "background checks". How did you know so-and-so athlete has cancer? How did you know about this baseball player having a boa constrictor? How did you know what this star basketball player had for breakfast yesterday? I'm unaware about how to do a background check. Why should I do a background check? Who do I do one on?

4) I'm a very isolated person; help me work well with others. Even when I was at SVN, I thought I was in my own little sportswriting world. But I AM in my own world. Being able to connect me to you is tricky.

5) Grammar, and all that good stuff. Duh.

I am from Sterling, IL - the epicenter of the Sauk Valley Newspapers conglomorate. My immediate area has a couple of NCIC schools, as well as the southern part of the NUIC, and pretty much all of the TRAC-8. I could correspond from a fixated area (NE rep, NW rep, southern rep, northern rep). I'll even shoot for stringer pay if I have to.

But the Mr. Hyde you think I resemble can quickly turn into a Dr. Jekyll in a snap, and stay there when tamed.