| Northern Illinois Sports Beat http://www.northernillinoissportsbeat.com |
| Cody's Writing Philosophy Three pieces of food for thought from a high school sports writer. |
The news come to me. Then I interpret the news in a way that is easy to read. I also
dislike using a whole lot of quotations in my stories. Quotes first came to be in high school
sports stories sparingly. Then over time they became more commonplace, and sometimes
more than half a story is composed of quotations.
My ambition as a high school sports writer is not to be like Shakespeare, Dickens or
Morrison. I don't intend to make readers think - I'll just tell you flat out. This thinking
concept takes too long, and most readers don't like that.
Because I don't like using quotations, I don't tend to ask complex questions to
interviewees. My feeling is that concentration on a particular item does not make for the
end result in a game. It takes the steps leading to, and the action following to make that
happens in between important. There's more to the game than the turning point.
Sometimes the preceding and the proceeding is more important.
So go ahead and call me "old school." There was nothing wrong with high school sports
reporting in the past, so there should be nothing wrong with it now; but there is pressure
from today's journalists.
We live in an age where everything is about politics and money. With money, there is
competition. With competition, there is notoriety. With notoriety, there is the worry about
self-interest. Journalists are so caught up in trying to be the best, help provide the best
coverage, and fending off "dot com's" because they represent what they believe is the
last true bastion of journalism: print.
I don't write articles to try to be the best writer. I don't write articles to try to achieve
organizational accolades. I'm proud to say that I write with a noon-next-day deadline for
my Northern Illinois Sports Beat articles. I may not be the first, but I strive to be the most
thorough. Of course, I try to combine the two in the best way possible.
I feel that to be a comfortable journalist, you have to do your work worry-free and just stick
to basics. Once the worries pile up, the stress piles up and the well-being of journalists
begins to take a turn for the worse. One of the ways to be a comfortable journalist is to
present yourself in a positive manner - professional, yes - but acting like you come first
doesn't build a good relationship between interviewers and interviewee when you try to
get a quote.
In short, my job is not to sell newspapers. If I want to do that, I'll be a paperboy.
Two other important points I'd like to stress:
It's all about teamwork! With the exception of the Freshman-Sophomore State Wrestling
series, events presented are efforts of the team. It has been preached over time that
teamwork can make differences. The game-winning basket or RBI is a result of working as
a team to produce the situation. I feel that focusing on on an individual game-related
accomplishment solely sells papers. Like I mentioned before, my job is not to sell, then I
would be a salesperson. In my experience with interviewing, I often get a response to
questions that fall along the line of "... as a team ...". If that is what the subjects believe,
then by way of what is presented to me, that is how I will write.
There's a fine line between kids and young adults. We have become more protective of
our children in recent years. Punishments and discipline are not as severe as they used
to be. There's a reason why paddles are not used in schools anymore. There are so
many uncertainties today that we will often help guide our youth. The ever-changing world
is making it difficult to become responsible.
When a football player throws a real high number of interceptions that lead to scores, he
is responsible for the team's loss. Of course we have to mention it in the story, and if it
was the chief factor, then it's a big deal.
Here's where the whining comes into play: if we bypass these things, the quarterback in
question will never learn. If we give free passes, they are going to just keep making
mistakes. By making deals about these things, those at fault are more likely to want to rid
of the cloud hanging above them than just receiving reaction from the inner circle.
While sportswriters play the devil in these situations, we keep in mind that we are trying to
help. Sometimes it takes shock and awe to do that. Somehow, through a network of
cables, everything mentioned comes together to form a story.
---
I take great pride in what I do. At the same time, I still have to put a story together and
have it ready for view at a certain time.
That's just like any other sports journalist. Most sports journalists work for a newspaper.
They are faced with enormous pressures just by being on a sports staff because they
have less time to write than other journalists.
The advent of online publications, like Northern Illinois Sports Beat, allows writers to put
together stories in more time, in order to get the story out soon before the plates are
pressed, the printers shut off, the delivery drivers pick up their loads, and the paper lands
on your doorstep. In online journalism, it takes very little time to finish writing a story and
post it online, where it is viewable in a matter of minutes. More and more newspapers are
now emphasizing up-to-the-minute coverage on their websites.
So, the print people (referred to as "old media") is catching up to the online people ("new
media"). Speed has now become the goal for today's sports journalists. Here is a brief
history of high school sports writing in rural newspapers (these sources from from my Intro
to Mass Communication class).
Up until World War II, most newspapers came out once a week. If something happened on
a Thursday with a Wednesday publishing date, the story is laying on the editor's desk for
days, and it was possible to take days to write the story just before publication. While the
clock went "tick-tock," it was possible to see crumpled up balls of paper in and alongside a
trashcan as stories were being re-worked and improved upon.
With the arrival of the daily newspaper, the lingering was now shortened to a couple of
hours at the most. That's less time to put a story together.
Now reporters have laptops with them, trying to be the first to get the story out and to
have something out. Sometimes, time can prevent the writer from writing certain things.
One doesn't really get a full story, but just by taking time with the story and getting all of
the information written, and put out in a timely manner, can prove effective.
Sure, but all print journalists have to do is find a effective way to combine thoroughness
and speed together. So the online journalist has to make them look like meatball writers.
Take the sitcom "M*A*S*H" for example. Injured soldiers of the Korean War were sent to
these mobile army surgical hospitals for treatment. However, for great care, they were
sent to actual hospitals like Tokyo General, where the character Major Charles Emerson
Winchester III came from. Winchester was noted for being a slow surgeon, and was
berated by Colonel Potter because of it. However, Winchester was used to performing the
best care for his patients. That's how I would feel if I joined a newspaper.
I mentioned what was above only because I was given very wonderful comments about my
writing from a Chicago high school basketball coach. I was covering a basketball
tournament in Erie in 2006, and this Chicago team was playing for the Warkins Cardinals
Classic Tournament championship. Chicago Dyett ended up beating Kewanee for the title,
and because I had written the article in fairness to both teams, I got a lot of praise from
Dyett because of the fact that I mentioned them and their accomplishment. What did the
Sun-Times and Tribune give them? Nothing. I was just doing my job the way I wanted it to
be done. The praise absolutely floored me. The coach went on to give me E-mail updates
on his team and his star player who was given Division I looks. Dyett won their first IHSA
Regional in school history that year.
I didn't know what was going to come next: was he going to persuade me to move to the
Windy City? Start a Chicago Sports Beat perhaps? Something tells me I could kick butt if I
moved there.
---
Although online journalism is beginning to trump the print newspapers, it is imperative that
online journalists like myself maintain positive relationships with the print journalists. We
shouldn't act like we are the new guys, and shoving people aside. When Jay Mariotti left
the Sun-Times, he said that newspapers will not survive. Mariotti said that the Internet was
the new leader, and he was going to look for an Internet home. Roger Ebert, whose
headquarters is the Sun-Times, fired back with the cry that newspapers indeed will survive.
I, too, think newspapers will survive. They are creating ways in order to make them
survive. While they are doing this, they are making themselves more of a magazine
format. They're still standing, aren't they? The print industry also has a crucial advantage,
as they are an industry that employs people. If online journalism was in the act of weeding
out the newspapers, they would in turn be showing journalists the door. I believe this is a
horrible way of making their move. These are people's lives they are ruining. Online
journalists should find ways to ensure that their print counterparts will succeed and
survive.
That is why I write as if I am a supplement to newspapers. I'll let print journalists do their
thing first. That's why I ask questions last in an interview. Newspapers will give you the
summary, I'll give you ... the REST of the story, as Paul Harvey puts it. We need to work
together.
---
I've sometimes been asked who my sports writing idols are. Here they are in alphabetical
order: Taylor Bell (Chicago Sun-Times), Andy Colbert (Sauk Valley Newspapers/Rockford
Register Star), Don Doxsie (Quad City Times), Rocky Hasbrouck (Sterling Gazette/Prep
Sports Online), Kevin Hieronymus (Bureau County Republican), David Holsted (Sauk
Valley Newspapers), Charles Kuralt (CBS), Bill Lidinsky (NISB/Ottawa Times), Marc
Nesseler (Moline Dispatch and Rock Island Argus), Tim O'Halloran (EdgyTim.com), Steve
Tucker (Sun-Times), and Joshua Welge (Sauk Valley Newspapers/Daily Herald, DuPage
County). That was not necessarily a list of my favorite writers, but people who in a way I
have looked up to in my career.
dislike using a whole lot of quotations in my stories. Quotes first came to be in high school
sports stories sparingly. Then over time they became more commonplace, and sometimes
more than half a story is composed of quotations.
My ambition as a high school sports writer is not to be like Shakespeare, Dickens or
Morrison. I don't intend to make readers think - I'll just tell you flat out. This thinking
concept takes too long, and most readers don't like that.
Because I don't like using quotations, I don't tend to ask complex questions to
interviewees. My feeling is that concentration on a particular item does not make for the
end result in a game. It takes the steps leading to, and the action following to make that
happens in between important. There's more to the game than the turning point.
Sometimes the preceding and the proceeding is more important.
So go ahead and call me "old school." There was nothing wrong with high school sports
reporting in the past, so there should be nothing wrong with it now; but there is pressure
from today's journalists.
We live in an age where everything is about politics and money. With money, there is
competition. With competition, there is notoriety. With notoriety, there is the worry about
self-interest. Journalists are so caught up in trying to be the best, help provide the best
coverage, and fending off "dot com's" because they represent what they believe is the
last true bastion of journalism: print.
I don't write articles to try to be the best writer. I don't write articles to try to achieve
organizational accolades. I'm proud to say that I write with a noon-next-day deadline for
my Northern Illinois Sports Beat articles. I may not be the first, but I strive to be the most
thorough. Of course, I try to combine the two in the best way possible.
I feel that to be a comfortable journalist, you have to do your work worry-free and just stick
to basics. Once the worries pile up, the stress piles up and the well-being of journalists
begins to take a turn for the worse. One of the ways to be a comfortable journalist is to
present yourself in a positive manner - professional, yes - but acting like you come first
doesn't build a good relationship between interviewers and interviewee when you try to
get a quote.
In short, my job is not to sell newspapers. If I want to do that, I'll be a paperboy.
Two other important points I'd like to stress:
It's all about teamwork! With the exception of the Freshman-Sophomore State Wrestling
series, events presented are efforts of the team. It has been preached over time that
teamwork can make differences. The game-winning basket or RBI is a result of working as
a team to produce the situation. I feel that focusing on on an individual game-related
accomplishment solely sells papers. Like I mentioned before, my job is not to sell, then I
would be a salesperson. In my experience with interviewing, I often get a response to
questions that fall along the line of "... as a team ...". If that is what the subjects believe,
then by way of what is presented to me, that is how I will write.
There's a fine line between kids and young adults. We have become more protective of
our children in recent years. Punishments and discipline are not as severe as they used
to be. There's a reason why paddles are not used in schools anymore. There are so
many uncertainties today that we will often help guide our youth. The ever-changing world
is making it difficult to become responsible.
When a football player throws a real high number of interceptions that lead to scores, he
is responsible for the team's loss. Of course we have to mention it in the story, and if it
was the chief factor, then it's a big deal.
Here's where the whining comes into play: if we bypass these things, the quarterback in
question will never learn. If we give free passes, they are going to just keep making
mistakes. By making deals about these things, those at fault are more likely to want to rid
of the cloud hanging above them than just receiving reaction from the inner circle.
While sportswriters play the devil in these situations, we keep in mind that we are trying to
help. Sometimes it takes shock and awe to do that. Somehow, through a network of
cables, everything mentioned comes together to form a story.
---
I take great pride in what I do. At the same time, I still have to put a story together and
have it ready for view at a certain time.
That's just like any other sports journalist. Most sports journalists work for a newspaper.
They are faced with enormous pressures just by being on a sports staff because they
have less time to write than other journalists.
The advent of online publications, like Northern Illinois Sports Beat, allows writers to put
together stories in more time, in order to get the story out soon before the plates are
pressed, the printers shut off, the delivery drivers pick up their loads, and the paper lands
on your doorstep. In online journalism, it takes very little time to finish writing a story and
post it online, where it is viewable in a matter of minutes. More and more newspapers are
now emphasizing up-to-the-minute coverage on their websites.
So, the print people (referred to as "old media") is catching up to the online people ("new
media"). Speed has now become the goal for today's sports journalists. Here is a brief
history of high school sports writing in rural newspapers (these sources from from my Intro
to Mass Communication class).
Up until World War II, most newspapers came out once a week. If something happened on
a Thursday with a Wednesday publishing date, the story is laying on the editor's desk for
days, and it was possible to take days to write the story just before publication. While the
clock went "tick-tock," it was possible to see crumpled up balls of paper in and alongside a
trashcan as stories were being re-worked and improved upon.
With the arrival of the daily newspaper, the lingering was now shortened to a couple of
hours at the most. That's less time to put a story together.
Now reporters have laptops with them, trying to be the first to get the story out and to
have something out. Sometimes, time can prevent the writer from writing certain things.
One doesn't really get a full story, but just by taking time with the story and getting all of
the information written, and put out in a timely manner, can prove effective.
Sure, but all print journalists have to do is find a effective way to combine thoroughness
and speed together. So the online journalist has to make them look like meatball writers.
Take the sitcom "M*A*S*H" for example. Injured soldiers of the Korean War were sent to
these mobile army surgical hospitals for treatment. However, for great care, they were
sent to actual hospitals like Tokyo General, where the character Major Charles Emerson
Winchester III came from. Winchester was noted for being a slow surgeon, and was
berated by Colonel Potter because of it. However, Winchester was used to performing the
best care for his patients. That's how I would feel if I joined a newspaper.
I mentioned what was above only because I was given very wonderful comments about my
writing from a Chicago high school basketball coach. I was covering a basketball
tournament in Erie in 2006, and this Chicago team was playing for the Warkins Cardinals
Classic Tournament championship. Chicago Dyett ended up beating Kewanee for the title,
and because I had written the article in fairness to both teams, I got a lot of praise from
Dyett because of the fact that I mentioned them and their accomplishment. What did the
Sun-Times and Tribune give them? Nothing. I was just doing my job the way I wanted it to
be done. The praise absolutely floored me. The coach went on to give me E-mail updates
on his team and his star player who was given Division I looks. Dyett won their first IHSA
Regional in school history that year.
I didn't know what was going to come next: was he going to persuade me to move to the
Windy City? Start a Chicago Sports Beat perhaps? Something tells me I could kick butt if I
moved there.
---
Although online journalism is beginning to trump the print newspapers, it is imperative that
online journalists like myself maintain positive relationships with the print journalists. We
shouldn't act like we are the new guys, and shoving people aside. When Jay Mariotti left
the Sun-Times, he said that newspapers will not survive. Mariotti said that the Internet was
the new leader, and he was going to look for an Internet home. Roger Ebert, whose
headquarters is the Sun-Times, fired back with the cry that newspapers indeed will survive.
I, too, think newspapers will survive. They are creating ways in order to make them
survive. While they are doing this, they are making themselves more of a magazine
format. They're still standing, aren't they? The print industry also has a crucial advantage,
as they are an industry that employs people. If online journalism was in the act of weeding
out the newspapers, they would in turn be showing journalists the door. I believe this is a
horrible way of making their move. These are people's lives they are ruining. Online
journalists should find ways to ensure that their print counterparts will succeed and
survive.
That is why I write as if I am a supplement to newspapers. I'll let print journalists do their
thing first. That's why I ask questions last in an interview. Newspapers will give you the
summary, I'll give you ... the REST of the story, as Paul Harvey puts it. We need to work
together.
---
I've sometimes been asked who my sports writing idols are. Here they are in alphabetical
order: Taylor Bell (Chicago Sun-Times), Andy Colbert (Sauk Valley Newspapers/Rockford
Register Star), Don Doxsie (Quad City Times), Rocky Hasbrouck (Sterling Gazette/Prep
Sports Online), Kevin Hieronymus (Bureau County Republican), David Holsted (Sauk
Valley Newspapers), Charles Kuralt (CBS), Bill Lidinsky (NISB/Ottawa Times), Marc
Nesseler (Moline Dispatch and Rock Island Argus), Tim O'Halloran (EdgyTim.com), Steve
Tucker (Sun-Times), and Joshua Welge (Sauk Valley Newspapers/Daily Herald, DuPage
County). That was not necessarily a list of my favorite writers, but people who in a way I
have looked up to in my career.
C o d y' s
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