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admin

who has written 184 posts for Sports Field Guide.

Mar
19
2013
Sports Language By admin | No comments

Cinderella wants her cliches back

It’s that time of year for teams to put on glass slippers, and for journalists to spew maddening cliches. But, please, for the love of Dick Vitale (or even Gus Johnson), restrain yourself from using so many tired phrases. To that end, I’m merging a few previously published posts from the past few years in [...]

Feb
27
2013
Tips: Covering Games By admin | No comments

Tips for baseball, softball coverage

Baseball relies on cliches more than any other sport. They appear in quotes from coaches and in prose from sportswriters. This leads to stories that are both superficial and vague.

Feb
18
2013
Tips: Teaching sports journalism By admin | No comments

Test students for sports terms, style

Students are always going to stumble over coverage of sports events, especially on deadline, such as finding the best angles, selecting appropriate quotes, structuring stories effectively, asking probing questions, and determining key trends and plays. That’s part of the learning process. So is employing suitable terms.

Feb
17
2013
College sports coverage, Ethics By admin | 4 comments

Block nickname metaphors simile to this

NOTE: New content was added to the end of this story Sunday night.
There is no justification for the bawdy headline in LSU’s student-run Daily Reveille this past week that characterized how the Tigers defeated the South Carolina Gamecocks. In some ways, the headline is titteringly amusing in a pre-teen sort of way. In many more ways, [...]

Feb
15
2013
Tips: Covering Games By admin | No comments

Insights into basketball from a coach

It’s always helpful when coaches speak to future sportswriters about their own profession. At EIU we are fortunate that many coaches are willing to share their expertise with our students. Ask coaches at your own schools if they can speak with your staffs or classes. I bet most will attempt to find the time, despite their [...]

Feb
14
2013
News, Tips: Teaching sports journalism By admin | No comments

Check out this basketball writing exercise

Exercises in class can never fully replicate an actual sportswriting experience, the same way batting practice isn’t the same as facing a live pitcher in a game. Like batting practice, though, exercises can better prepare students for live action. That’s why I constantly develop practice sessions for my sportswriting class like the one outlined below.
Exercises [...]

Feb
12
2013
Multimedia reporting, Tips: Covering Games By admin | No comments

Basketball coverage tips offered tonight

I’ll be tweeting at @joegisondi from a college women’s basketball game tonight with students from my sportswriting class assigned to the game between Eastern Illinois University and Oakland College. I’ll offer tips on how to cover basketball games, include observations about the game, and share challenges faced by my students.  I will tag most comments [...]

Jan
18
2013
Multimedia reporting By admin | No comments

How sportswriters are using Twitter

That Twitter is a terrific journalism tool is not news. But how sports journalists use this social media may be. Sports journos report news, cover events, cultivate sources, and promote material. In fact, most breaking news is first posted on Twitter. I’ve listed 15 ways sportswriters tweet about sports, a list that can be neither exhaustive [...]

Jan
17
2013
News By admin | No comments

Fans appreciate free, unfettered coverage

Those in power too frequently believe they should control the press, an approach that inhibits the free flow of information necessary to run a democratic society. That’s what happened at Florida A&M, where a dean shut down the student-run school newspaper and stripped editors of their positions related to an error in the paper back [...]

Jan
10
2013
Ethics By admin | No comments

Sportswriters act unethically by voting

How can we as journalism professors explain and teach ethical guidelines when sports journalists break them publicly and controversially in so many ways, such as voting for baseball’s hall of fame and in college football polls?
Journalists should act independently and cover the news and not create news as they did yesterday when the Baseball Writers’ Association [...]

Jan
8
2013
Multimedia reporting By admin | No comments

Learn multimedia skills or sit on sidelines

Let’s face it: print newspapers are dead – especially among younger sports fans. This is not breaking news, by any means, but I thought (hoped) that college sports fans would still break out their favorite sections in the Chicago Tribune, St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Chicago Sun-Times to catch up on the Cardinals, Bears, Cubs, White [...]

Jan
4
2013
General, In-depth sports reporting By admin | No comments

Reporting’s key to finding your voice

When I start looking for story examples for my Sportswriting course, I inevitably start checking on recent posts by Tyler Dunne, the talented young NFL beat writer for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Like always, I found another gem to share with my students yesterday, a piece on the internal struggle faced by Packers lineman Evan [...]

Jan
3
2013
General, News By admin | No comments

Resolve to be a better sportswriter in 2013

Who the heck wants to get up at 5 a.m. each day to lose weight, or to eat less bacon in order to remain healthy? No more cursing? That’s F-ing crazy talk. Let’s consider, instead, far more interesting, practical, and attainable goals for 2013 that will help you become a better sports journalist, and that [...]

Dec
4
2012
Tips: Beat Coverage By admin | 1 comment

It’s a challenge covering coaches on hot seat

So what should you do if your coach is on the proverbial hot seat?
That’s a far tougher decision for sports journalists than for fans, who can jeer at games, screech on message boards, and create websites and Twitter accounts dedicated to getting the coach fired. Journalists need to remain as neutral as possible, especially when [...]

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