By Dan Wiederer, Staff Writer
The Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
DETROIT — George Solomon has been around long enough to understand how promising young sports journalists can emerge as superstars. And he believes part of the formula requires an investment from bosses to help their employees maximize their talents.
“You have to give the people you hire an opportunity to succeed,” Solomon said.
That mantra, conveyed by Solomon last week during an APSE Conference seminar on recruiting and training the next generation of sports journalists, delivers a profound reminder to editors at all levels. But what are the keys to editors first finding the right fits for their newsrooms, then working to develop that?
It requires a keen instinct, Solomon believes, to identify journalists with passion, intelligence and, perhaps most of all, an enthusiasm to continually grow.
Solomon was the sports editor at the Washington Post from 1975-2003 and is now the director of the Shirley Povich Center for sports journalism at the University of Maryland. He spoke on a panel that also included Vicki Michaelis, a sports journalism professor at the University of Georgia, Malcolm Moran, the director of the National Sports Journalism Center at Indiana University, and John Turner of the Sporting News.
Solomon pointed to Rachel Nichols as a now established star who provides a reliable roadmap for the climb to the top.
Nichols, a ubiquitous TV reporter whom Solomon mentored years back as an intern at the Post, is now spreading her wings in a new venture with CNN and still exuding the assertiveness Solomon came to admire in the late 1990s, exemplified best when she shooed away columnist Tony Kornheiser from a high-profile story she was already attacking.
To this day, Nichols has aided her rise with ambition, composure, smarts and adaptability.
For Michaelis, Justin Rice serves as an example of an up-and-comer who has fueled his development with an aggressiveness to create opportunities for himself. Rice’s vision, after all, launched him from a small paper stringer to the creator of BostonPublicSports.com, a popular high school sports blog now affiliated with the Boston Globe.
And Moran highlights Mark Viera as his example of a budding journalist with fearlessness and incredible reporting instincts, qualities that allowed him to win a first-place APSE breaking news award for coverage he delivered to the New York Times on the Jerry Sandusky child abuse scandal. Viera’s contributions to the Times came as a freelancer not long after his own graduation from Penn State.
Moran also wants young journalists to understand the values of crossing every platform in today’s age, learning not only how to report and to write but to continue developing their digital skills and building confidence both in front of and behind a camera.
Overall, the panelists agreed that the rising stars in the business all have a noticeable combination of initiative, confidence, brainpower and an ability to engage with sources in a persistent yet inviting manner.
Energy, of course, will always be required. And defeatist attitudes must be pushed aside. Where naysayers may see a business in decline, the true standouts see a promising evolution and an opportunity to grow.
Turner, a promising young editor surrounded on the panel by established veterans, exudes his own positive energy. And with his staff he remembers to frequently deliver jolts of encouragement.
“We have cool jobs,” Turner said. “And so I try frequently to convey that and remind people that, ‘Yeah, your job doesn’t suck as much as you might think.’”
(Dan Wiederer covers the Minnesota Vikings for the Star Tribune of Minneapolis. Email him at dan.
