By Staff
Scot Beard
Franklin County Times
Starting a new job has always been an exciting experience.
To me, it is like rafting down an unexplored river – you generally know what to expect, but every curve provides the opportunity for surprises.
As the sports reporter at my previous job, I learned the ropes of covering high school athletics. This is the familiar part.
I cover games, take photographs, write stories, place them on the pages and send it to the press.
Sometimes it is a smooth process, while other times things can get stressful.
That is expected.
The adventurous part of taking a new job – especially as a reporter – is meeting people and learning about the community you will be covering.
Some people are comfortable speaking with reporters and can give great quotes to round out a good story.
Then, there are the people that go in the opposite direction.
Whether it is shyness or a distrust of reporters, people in this group say as little as they can during an interview.
I like these interviews the best because I like that challenge.
I know if I can get past that resistance and get a good quote, I know I have done my job well.
I enjoy the challenge, but I do not want to deal with it every day, and I do not want to face this problem on a tight deadline.
Another adventure is learning how to make everybody happy with your coverage.
In high school sports, rivalries run deep and fans are quick to point out if they feel their team is getting less coverage than an opposing school.
At my previous job, I got an angry call because one school had four stories during the week while another school only had one story. The caller said I was obviously biased towards the first school.
The first team had four games while the second team only had one.
It did not matter, the caller was still mad.
It did not bother me – I expect calls like that when I cover a subject fans are so passionate about.
I can promise I will do my best to provide balanced coverage to all the schools, because all of the athletes work hard and deserve recognition for their efforts.
I am happy to be at The Franklin County Times.
Let the adventure begin.