Me, Her, the Boy and a Dog
Also, I founded the GoFightWinVT Tumblr, so if you're a Hokie, give it a follow. And, feel free to check out my Project 365 Tumblr.
I was recently presented with an opportunity to cover Virginia Tech football for Fox Sports and initially, I was excited. But, when I got the details of the “agreement,” I was disappointed.
The opportunity was presented to me, initially, as a stringer/beat writer for Fox Sports, writing previews and recaps. But, when I got the agreement via e-mail, it was much different that I had believed. Fox wanted 3-4 “quick hitter” articles and one 750-1,000 word article per week in addition to 3-4 video elements (i.e. sound bytes), that I would have to upload to the server. Fox would send me all the video/audio equipment complete with mic flag and I would have to attend the weekly press conferences.
So, what was the compensation? $300 a week. Sounds like a lot, but when you break down the time and effort to put all that together, it’s actually not, at least not for someone with 18 years of sports journalism experience. Shoot, I can make $150 per free lance article. Anyhow, I weighed the pros and cons such as the prestige of working for Fox Sports vs. the low pay and how much the additional work would cut into my family time and decided it just wasn’t worth it.
I will continue to cover the Hokies for VTHokieFans.com and TechHoops.com. I hope to see you guys there. Go Hokies!
