Sportswriters

On December 4, I went to see sportswriters, Michael Cohen from Syracuse.com, Pete Thamel from Sports Illustrated, and Greg Bishop from the New York Times, speak about their career experiences, their journeys as sports journalists, and give useful advice to students.
One of the major messages the journalists conveyed was that curiosity is the key to success. As students, we should read a lot. We should read people who are better than us and excel—try to match their level. We should get to know the greatest people in our fields and then compare our work against theirs, not because we think that our work is better or could even compete with theirs, but to see the differences. How are my paragraphs different than theirs? What makes theirs better than mine? One of the journalists compared it to how sports players play against someone who is a lot better than they are so they get better. It’s a challenge. I thought that this was really good advice and it made me realize that I don’t know many big names in PR and that I should start doing research to find out who the greats are.
Another great piece of advice was, “Do your job very very well.” This seems pretty basic but I think that it is so often overlooked. People set goals and want to get somewhere without realizing how it connects to what they are doing right now. You need to excel today to get to where you want to get in the future. You cannot start at the top. Your first job will not be your dream job but you will move up the ladder if you make your work stand out. Also, your first job is when it’s time to make mistakes and learn. As one of the journalists said, “Make your mistakes when there are not a whole lot of people watching.”
The overarching theme of the discussion was to stay curious, to write as much as you can, and to take the necessary steps to improve yourself and become successful. During this panel, I picked up a lot of useful advice that I will certainly be putting to use.