(Picture from USAToday.com)
NO. Not that interview. I interviewed one of my close friends, Kevin Reese, who writes for a website called TheSportsQuotient.com and talked to him about his passion for sportswriting and the impact social media has on sports. However, first I should address the elephant in the room that if the readers back home are counting, I have now switched my research question for the fifth time and hopefully the last time. Updated research question: How has the language of sportswriting changed because of Twitter?
I proceeded with that question in mind as I went into my interview with Kevin at his apartment on South Campus. Here are some exchanges we had as we talked about his background in sportswriting.
Arick: First off, what exactly is TheSportsQuotient?
Kevin: It is a site similar to BleacherReport, which is one of the sites we modeled ourselves after. However, what separates us from most sports websites is it is a college-student based website, where it is mostly college students covering sports across the country.
Arick: What do you do for TheSportsQuotient?
Kevin: I used to do a variety of things, like think of trivia questions for a trivia section of our website, but this year (sophomore year), I began to write these things called SoundOffs. I am a beat writer, which means I cover a specific area and my area is the Philadelphia Eagles, so I write a game recap and then also voice my opinion after I write the article. So it’s factual, but then I get to voice my opinion at the end, which I like a lot.
Arick: Are you an active Twitter user? How often do you check Twitter?
Kevin: I would say I am an avid Twitter user and I probably look at it every hour or two from when i wake up until I go to bed.
Arick: How have you seen Twitter interact in the sports world?
Kevin: Well, I follow a lot of sports stuff on Twitter. So, like ESPN and networks revolving around ESPN, sports writers, and athletes. So, sports often shows up on my timeline and I will see a lot of highlights or GIFs of certain plays that are trending on Twitter at the moment.
Arick: How do you incorporate Twitter into your sports writing?
Kevin: I would say it’s a lot easier to write because of Twitter. There is so much that happens that breaks through Twitter first, so if I see a certain headline that just got announced, I’ll see it on Twitter and then I will claim that “piece” and write an article on it. Writing a game recap is easy because there are numerous people who tweet during games and you get a better flow for writing when you see people publish stats online and what not. It is the easiest place to find anything sports related on the internet.
Arick: Thank you for taking the time out of your day to be interviewed…now drive me back to main campus.
I kid about the last part, but I thought deeply about what he said in the last sentence. “It is the easiest place to find anything sports related on the internet.” I believe that sentence has helped my research question in the fact that highlights are always at the fingertips of a sportswriters phone screen. So much can happen in five minutes on Twitter that a news story can break, and then in seven minutes, an article can be released. Twitter has renovated the sportswriting genre into a more fast-pace type of writing that sportswriters are adapting to in the twenty first century.
In my next blog post, I will find new sources to back up my new research question. Stay tuned.
(Facebook.com) My friend Kevin
