It is easier than ever to create and distribute sports-media content. This means more opportunities regardless of the medium you work in.
On the one hand, this is great for anyone who creates content. Not only has the number of potential employers increased in almost exponential terms, but it’s now possible to produce and distribute content yourself.
On the other hand, this is incredibly challenging for anyone who creates content. Not only are you going to be asked to make more of it, but you’ll be asked to tailor that content to the contours of different platforms it will be distributed on. It’s almost like a twist on that Spider-Man mantra about great power coming with greater responsibility: With greater professional opportunity comes bosses asking you for more contributions.
I have some first-hand experience, not just from 8 years as a radio host in Seattle, but for 14 years before that, I was a newspaper reporter. One of my favorite memories from that industry’s transition to online publication came after the staff meeting in which The Seattle Times was declared to be a “Digital First!” operation.
“More work!” chanted the city-hall reporter, clapping his hands twice, “Same pay!”
He wasn’t entirely correct in this matter. I found it was much more than double the work, and that’s not a criticism of the newspaper’s approach. The adjustment was necessary for the survival of the business, and speaking specifically of that newspaper, the sports reporters who took on a heavier digital workload came to be more valued. Unfortunately, you also run the risk of being swamped by more people asking you to do more things in more places.
Sound familiar?
I thought so.
So consider this the opening chapter in my handbook “How to Survive (and Hopefully Thrive) in a Digital Revolution.” I know, I know, the title is kind of clunky. This whole thing is a work in progress.
1) Prioritize
You need to know what your employer defines as your most important job functions and what it sees as the most valuable content. You may not agree with the priorities they lay out, but you absolutely have to understand what they are.
Create a hierarchy ranked in terms of importance. Over-the-air programming is likely to be at the top, at least for now. Is social media next? Is it an original podcast? How about online articles?
You need to know what they want and what they value to make an informed decision about how you’re going to spend your most important commodity: your time. This is especially true in the digital media business, which is not subject to the same limitations as traditional media.
A newspaper’s content is limited by the physical space of the printed page. An over-the-air radio station’s programming is restricted by time in the schedule. Those limitations simply don’t apply to digital content, which is really exciting because you don’t have to wait to be given a spot in the lineup to show you can attract an audience. It’s also potentially overwhelming and opens the chance you may spend too much time creating content that your employer doesn’t value at the expense of what they do value.
2) Don’t Wait To Be Given Marching Orders.
Sell your employers on a few experiments. Try stuff. Be willing to incorporate some new things into what you’re doing.
In 2005, I began covering the Seattle Seahawks for a local newspaper. Mike Sando was covering the same team for the Tacoma News-Tribune, but he increasingly focused on the digital product not just with a blog, but by posting audio files of the press conferences and interviews online. He didn’t just serve an audience that didn’t want to wait until the next morning’s paper to learn what was said, he developed that audience.
Within a few years, Sando had been hired by ESPN and now works for The Athletic. His willingness to experiment with a new way of covering an NFL team functioned like a pole vaulter’s fiberglass stick, flinging up into a higher tier of the industry.
It’s not just the audience you learn about, though. Sometimes it’s you. I began using Twitter in 2009 while working as a reporter for The Seattle Times. Adopting the new technology gave me a (brief) headstart on others who soon followed, but that platform also provided an outlet for both my sense of humor and my willingness to share details about my life, which didn’t come through in my articles and columns for the newspaper. It has built an audience that followed me, personally, to my career as a radio host and now as a self-employed writer.
3) Don’t Try To Do Everything.
OK, so far you’ve got the list of priorities that has been laid out by your employer, and some new stuff that you want to try. Now comes the third pool of potential work: Ideas or initiatives that come from your boss or corporate overlords. This is the trickiest group because in a practical sense, you’re almost certainly not going to have time to try EVERYTHING they bring up. But in a professional sense, it’s risky to decide you’re not going to try ANYTHING they suggest.
What you can do is ask for clarity on two things:
- How do they see this piece of content working? There’s a chance that it will be something that is legitimately exciting for you, and if it’s not, at least you’ll understand both the concept and the hope.
- Where does this fit into the list of your job’s priorities? This not only provides you with a sense of how much of your time should go into this, but it forces your boss to commit to how much time they want you to spend on it.
4) Mix From The Three Pools of Work
The sports-media industry is changing, and if you keep fulfilling the job requirements as if this was the 1990s, it’s a recipe for extinction. But disregarding those core requirements entirely and plunging headfirst into new types of content is risky. If those new types of content aren’t successful, or just as bad, aren’t valued by your employer, what are you left with?
My advice is to mix from the following three pools of content that have been identified:
- Identify and fulfill the core functions of your job. This part is non-negotiable and is almost certain to consume the majority of your work week;
- Develop and actively experiment with one type of content that piques your interest or you consider promising;
- Be open to ideas that are handed down to you, too, but make sure you get clarity on where they should figure into your work week.
More work? Yeah. That’s probably the reality of a digital workload, but these rules should help you navigate the new opportunities without getting swamped by the workload.
Danny O’Neil is a sports media columnist for BSM. He has previously hosted morning and afternoon drive for 710 ESPN Seattle, and served as a reporter for the Seattle Times. He can be reached on Twitter @DannyOneil or by email at Danny@DannyOneil.com.
