Media Participation Project- Josh Coggins

Joshua Coggins

Media Participation Project

For my media participation project I decided that I wanted to shadow a current journalist, specifically a sports journalist.  As I thought of potential journalist that I could shadow, I came across the idea to shadow the sports writer for my home town newspaper. I am from Hanover, PA, which is a small town, and the reason I chose a journalist from a small town paper is because there is more of a community feel to a smaller newspaper. I also chose it because it gave me an opportunity to set up connections in my hometown for over the summer. The newspaper in my hometown is called The Evening Sun. I shadowed the sports writer, Mike Rubin for a morning.          

            Mike Rubin has worked for The Evening Sun for over 3 years now. His emphasis is on sport, specifically high school sports. Before working for the Sun, he worked as an elementary school physical education teacher. Around the time of Hurricane Katrina, he decided he wanted to help people. So in August he quit being a teacher after 3yeaars of teaching. He hated having to be a teacher, so with the help of his wife they founded a non-profit charitable organization giving food to those in need. He serves about 150 people I believe. He then decided that he wanted to do something that he loved which was writing stories about sports. He then got hired at The Evening Sun. He got hired to cover local high school sports for the paper.

            There were some things that did surprise me about The Evening Sun. It is a 3 day paper. They print papers on Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday. They do however have daily papers online. Every day’s news and articles are uploaded to their website. It also surprised me that their sports editor is at the York Daily Record, the Evening Sun’s sister paper. The company that owns both papers is called Digital First and they own about 70 newspapers. It also surprised me that the Evening Sun provided each writer/reporter with a brand new iPhone.

            Mike started off by telling me a brief history about the Evening Sun. He then told me about his past work experiences. He then went over all of the things he does day to day. He showed me all of the new technology that he has at his disposal. That technology includes twitter, tout (allows you to share videos), and how they use Go Pros. They use the Go Pros for various angles for a shot. He showed me videos of a Go Pro laying on the ground capturing the motion of golfers at the golf tournament. He also had this really cool video of a girl from a local high school doing the barrel role on a horse. It was cool learning all the different ways that he as a writer can get a story other than just interviewing people.

            The most rewarding parts of the job are the thanks that he gets for articles he writes about the high school athletes. He gets a lot of flexibility about what he can cover. No two days are the same for him, whether he is in the office or out at practices. Fridays he works 4pm-12am covering the football games. There is no limitation with what they can do. The only limitation is their mind and what they can think about. He once put Go Pros on the long snapper, holder, and kicker of a football team and watched how they perform a field goal. He likes that the 3 day paper has given journalist more opportunities to do features. His current features include one about two deaf wrestlers on Bermudian Springs Wrestling team and one on a state qualifying runner, who found out she had a heart condition that leads to athletes dying because of heart attacks, being able to run her senior race.

            The most difficult thing about being a journalist is that because of media and mostly everything being online he is never off of the clock. Since he is a sports reporter he has a lot of high school sports he has to report on. He can’t be an expert in one sport, he has to know something about all sports. The money is a big thing. Journalist don’t go into the field for the money, they do it because they love reporting breaking news.

            Being that my interest is in Sports Journalism, specifically Sports Broadcasting, I asked him what the difficulties are about interviewing people. Coaches are hard to deal with sometimes because of their time schedules, and they don’t always check their emails. Athletes are pretty accessible because of social media but sometimes their quotes aren’t the best. When he interview them he need to make them feel comfortable so that he can get the best quotes from them. I also asked him if it was hard to break into the journalism field. He said that because there are so many forms of journalism, it is good to be able to cross over to different types of journalism. He also finds it important that a journalist has experience in many different platforms such as social media. If you have multiple skill sets it is easier to get hired.         

            This shadowing opportunity reaffirmed for me that I do indeed want to be a sports journalist. After learning of some of the rewarding benefits as well as the downfalls for being a journalist, I still would like to become a journalist. I would do it for my love of sports. Mike said that the trend in journalism is out of the office, and doing work in the public where news may happen. I wouldn’t like a job where I am doing the same thing every day nor do I want to be a pencil pusher. The fact that journalism is heading in this direction is exciting. My opportunity of shadowing Mike from the Evening Sun reaffirmed my interest in becoming a sports journalist.