Even with the criticism that comes with being in the media, I love journalism, particularly sports journalism, and follow the issues and trends related to it closely.
Anyway, I'm reading about whether or not to tape record interviews. I fall into the taping camp, myself, but I do understand those who say they don't. They don't want an artificial device to get in the way of the conversation. Better stuff comes with the tape recorder off. It takes too much time to transcribe, especially on deadline, etc.
That can be true, but in my case, I'm a poor notetaker. I don't have a quick and easy shorthand. I have one, but it's not very efficient, and I'm not very fast anyway. And I don't have a very good memory. Plus, if I'm not using one, it's that much more for me to make sure I'm quoting someone accurately. I'm having to think too much about what's just been said, rather than thinking ahead and preparing for a followup question, or observing the subject closer.
The time spent transcribing for me is minimal in comparison, because I'm still making a few notes, but those notes are observations about the subject; they're notes to tell me when I hear a good quote so I know what part of the tape I need for my story.
Plus, a lot of my sportswriting has been game stories, which means I'm writing (not in every case since I write for the web and not for print, but I've observed this enough with print colleagues to know) on deadline. It means I'm writing as the game is in progress.
Take your typical game story. If you have a 7:30 p.m. start time for the game, you know in soccer or basketball, for instance, the game will last roughly two hours. Most newspapers on the east coast have 10:00 p.m. deadlines on their stories. Some of this has changed with being able to put later versions of the story on the web, but generally, to make most editions of a newspaper, that's the typical deadline. That means if the game finishes at 9:30, a reporter has half-an-hour to turn his copy into something that's going to get in the paper the next day.
It means if you're on your own, you have to decide immeidately what you need in terms of quotes. The coach of the team you're covering is usually standard (in most sports setups, they'll have the coaches appear separately in a room set up for a make-shift press conference), but you won't likely stick around for his entire comments (or the comments from the other coach) unless you're running ahead of schedule (and you never are), because you'll want one from the star of the game, which means you're hitting the locker room as soon as it opens so that the player doesn't have an opportunity to duck out.
Then, you have to get to the point fast, talking about the key play or plays, any controversies, whatever, and also hope you can get something your competition won't. You might talk to one or two others on the off-chance for something original or different, then you head back to the press box to insert the few quotes you'll be able to use. Even with this shortcut technique, you'll have more material than you'll use, but here's where the tape recorder comes in.
In a locker room setting, it's usually loud, unless that team has lost, in which case it's going to be hard to get quotes because players aren't going to want to talk as much, if at all. You'll find those players hiding in the training room, or finding a way out before the doors to the room officially open. In a loud setting, whether taking notes or not, you need to position yourself close to the athlete; otherwise, you're getting a lot of background noise, and you'll be distracted from what the player is saying.
I still find a tape recorder better in this situation, because I have a long reach, and if it's a mob scene around the player, I can get it close and pick up what he is saying. When the mob leaves, I try to get a question or two in depending on whether I have time, in case I didn't pick up what he said as well as I thought I did. Usually I'm not pressed like other reporters, so I'll talk to several players. In most cases, I'm either the only person around him asking, or I'm one of just a few, so it means I have a better chance to add color to my stories.
I l like to use quotes from players other than the stars, because in
many cases, the supplementary players have something better to say, and
they're appreciative that someone came over to talk with them. And they'll remember you for that too if they get more popular.
In some cases, for the papers on the tight deadline, they'll feed the coach's press conference up in the press box so that those reporters on the tight deadline can get quotes without having to leave their keyboard. But that leaves out players. If you're a suburban reader of a big metro paper's sports page, you'll be lucky to get quotes for reasons I've already stated. Fortunately, this stuff is now on the web.
I have a couple of reporter friends who've helped me out quite a bit in learning the ropes of covering a professional team, so sometimes I'll offer them some of my material if I know they didn't have time. Sometimes they'll ask, and sometimes I'll just offer.
Another unique thing in game coverage is that you'll see competing reporters helping each other on describing what happened on key plays. Sometimes you'll be typing something in thinking there's a lull in the action, only for a big play to happen. In that case, you have to hope for a replay on the press box monitors, and in absence of that, someone who watched the play to describe it (the 5 W's and 1 H of it).
I do use a shorthand to keep track of the action as I'm watching, which I'll flesh out at halftime, and I'll use the stat sheets the PR people pass out. If covering small college or high school sports, though, you're not likely to have this, and you're better off tracking the action and key stats on your own.
It's not really fascinating unless you're involved in it, but the payoff is in the story afterward--having a good lead, better and different quotes than the others, a story that flows well, and all of this on a tight deadline. Like I said, in my case, my deadline on most occasions isn't nearly as tight, though I've found that writing for the web, I still have to be fast and accurate, and when I can, first, so that I can get more attention for what I write, because the minute the big newspapers covering the game come out with their stories on the web, mine lose attention.
I do have an advantage, though, because I can use more quotes, add more background, give a fuller description. Plus, I can use the audio/video once in awhile too. But still, I try not to go overboard on this, because even the longest attention spans aren't going to want to read a novel on a game. With a tape recorder, though, I can concentrate on details and not on my frantic quote-taking, which I've found in the situations I've had to do it, is difficult at best. Short quotes in this case work better. I'm amazed at people who can do it.
I try to cover a game for the person who watched it all (either in person or on TV) and give that person some behind-the-scenes stuff, and for the person who didn't watch the game, to give them a sense of the game and enough details to let them talk about it as if they were there.
The other thing I try to do, since I do generally talk to several players, is that I try to gather material for 1-2 other stories. I don't get to be at the practices on a regular basis or travel with the team to most road games, but I still want material for stories in the next few days, so I'll have an angle or two worked up already (in many cases even before the game) and try to talk to those players specifically about those subjects.
All in all, it's a tape recorder for me (I have extra tapes and batteries just in case, and this year, I'm buying a backup tape recorder). It might be a hindrance in other reporting situations, but in sports and politics, I've found it essential, with key notetaking as an assist to point you to the parts of the tape if you have to hurry with the story.
Yes, it's a fascinating life, that of a sports reporter. Sorry if I bored...
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