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What Skills Do I Need as a Sports Beat Writer?
As a sports beat writer, you will need to be prepared to write stories about a particular sports team throughout the course of the season, as well as the off-season. This means you will not only need exceptional writing skills, but also a fairly significant amount of creativity to come up with topics even during off-days and slow parts of a season or off-season. You should be prepared to travel quite a bit, as you may be required to go to various cities throughout a country to cover a team in action. The sports beat writer position can be stressful, especially since you will be expected to meet tight deadlines.
To be a successful sports beat writer, you must be highly organized and dedicated to the task at hand. You will need to produce fresh content on a daily basis, and your writing will need to be engaging and interesting. You will probably be required to have a college degree in writing or a related field in order to become a sports beat writer, and your knowledge of the particular game you will be covering will need to be extensive. If, for example, you become a sports beat writer for a baseball team, you will need to know all the rules of the game as well as the important players, teams, events, and timelines.
Be prepared for life on the road during the sports season. You may not always be required to travel with the team, but it is likely that you will need to travel to various cities to cover important games and events. Sometimes the sports beat writer will be required to conduct interviews, as well; this means you will need to develop social skills and be able to talk clearly to interviewees. It helps to practice interview techniques so you are prepared for this sometimes stressful and difficult duty.
A working knowledge of various types of computer programs will almost certainly be required. Word processing programs are the ones you are likely to use most often to produce content, but you may also need to learn how to write a blog, work with HTML, or even design websites. An ability to take photos or video is also preferable, but usually not required. Generally speaking, the more skills and talents you have, the more likely you will be to secure a position as a sports beat writer for a particular sports team or league.
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![A baseball beat writer needs to know all the rules of baseball.]()
By: llandreaA baseball beat writer needs to know all the rules of baseball. -
![Sports beat writers should be familiar with common injuries and concerns that players face.]()
By: Nicholas PiccilloSports beat writers should be familiar with common injuries and concerns that players face.
Discussion Comments
Animandel - Being a sports beat writer can be a rewarding job. However, like any job, it has what are considered drawbacks by some. For example, after you've done the job for a few years, traveling to the same cities over and over can get to be more stressful than enjoyable.
Believe it or not, not all beat writers are fortunate enough to cover the sport of their choice. Sometimes you just get what is available and learn to deal with it. Also, all that travel can be tough on relationships, and if you have kids then packing a bag and catching a flight so you can watch a game is sometimes the last thing you want to do.
Traveling across the country, covering a sport you enjoy and getting paid for doing it-- is that a great job or what?
From reading tons of sports pages and watching too much sports news on TV, I have to say the best beat writers are the men and women who get the inside dirt. A beat writer should not only know what I don't know, but he or she should also know what other beat writers don't even know. Just like sports, covering sports is about beating the competition.
Reporters who cover different sports shouldn't be expected to know as much about one particular sport as the guys who cover only that one sport.
If you have a particular sport that you love and you decide to go to college so you can become a reporter covering that sport then you should know this. At smaller newspapers, a sports reporter who covers the football beat covers other sports when football season is over. He or she may still cover off-season football happenings, but the paper can't afford to pay individual beat writers for every story.
I mention this only to let young reporters know they need to be prepared to be dual layer writers. The more you can write about the more valuable you are to your bosses, and the more options you will have upon graduation.
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