It's Worth a Shot

Since 1996, Jeff McLane of Glenside, PA, has been working at The Philadelphia Inquirer. In October of 2004, he became a staff writer for Pennsylvania high school sports. I had the opportunity to have a phone interview with Mr. McLane as he talked about his life as a sport journalist and some of the difficulties he has come across. He started out to explain that he originally didn't intend to study journalism in college.

"I started out as an English major at Penn State University; however my original plan was to go to law school. Around my senior year, while taking a sports journalism class, I figured out that sports writing was the way that I wanted to go," said McLane.

Like many kids growing up, he wanted to play professional sports. But everyone gets to that point in their life where they figure out if they are really good enough or not. After reading his favorite publications such as The Inquirer, Sports Illustrated, and The Daily News, and getting to authors such as Jason Stark, he figured that writing in sports was more the direction that he wanted to go.

McLane brought up an interesting point when he talked about how he enjoys writing about sports that he's less interested in versus his favorite sport.

"Growing up, my favorite sport was baseball, but it isn't my favorite to cover as a writer. I enjoy writing about Basketball, Football, and when I get the chance to cover it, Golf," he said.

Even though his main job is staff writer for Pennsylvania for high schools, occasionally he will cross over and do some college coverage, and if he has the chance, he will do a professional sports story. It all depends on where the opportunities are. McLane explained that even if you're just a sports writer, some stories that you write will have different angles to them, and can be put into other categories besides sports. He had that experience.

"There have been times where my stories have popped up in other sections of the newspaper besides sports. One time, there was a story that I did on these high school athletes who had beaten up some kids, and it ended up in the City Region section. It's all about the angle you look at and the story that comes from it," said McLane.

McLane continued by talking about difficulties he has come across while working at The Inquirer. It isn't so much as dealing with athletes or management; it has more to do with the outside negatives of the business.

"The job isn't the hardest part; it's more about the outside negatives that affect the newspaper business. It's been difficult to get enough journalists to cover each beat; especially in my department, because we just don't have enough money and space to do so," he said.

"It makes jobs harder on ourselves as far as time spent on working or the more things we actually have to cover."

We concluded our discussion as McLane gave me some guidance as an aspiring journalist. For the most part he said to write as much as you can and get your name out there whenever you get the chance, even if it's for a small paper that no one reads.
"Write as much as you can, and get yourself published somewhere, even if it's a paper that only a few people read. The newspaper business is definitely in the flux whether it's losing readers or cutting staff. But, the internet is still there, so there's plenty of room for sports journalists, and ways of getting jobs. However, you need to be willing to travel or even move away, you need to take chances," said McLane.

By: Ryan Barbieri