Nick Tabbert was an excellent orator, and a provided a refreshing sense of realism to the concepts we had been working through. His real world experience was able to give solid form to the abstract ideas of what being a sportscaster was like for me. For me, the discussion was especially intriguing, as I have personally worked as a sport broadcaster (albeit only for one show) on the campus news station, WMCM. I briefly talked to Nick about this after class, and was encouraged to here that his path was recreatable, and not a merely a fluke.
During his presentation, what most stood out to me was the genuine enjoyment that he seemed to have just from getting to be in the job he was. The way in which he spoke made be suspect that he was rather
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Knowing the type of person I would have to persuade has dramatically changed my framework on how I would look at writing a press release in general, and my SMA conference press release in particular. When I asked him about what he looked for when reviewing a press release, and what story elements he was looking for, his answer was different then I would have expected him to give. For he said plainly that he wanted local stories that the community would care about, with a human interest angle and easy access. I would not have assumed that proximity would have played as much of a factor as he seemed to indicate, although on reflection, it makes sense considering the market area they are selling to. Human interest involvement also took me a little of guard, as I would have thought it to be primarily supplementary. His point of view seemed to consider it integral however, making me once again reconsider what to put into a potential press release. Ease of access was something else I had not really thought of, but it makes sense that you would have to be able to get in contact with whomever or whatever the prevailing story was. From all this, I benefited hugely from his perspective, and will think on it next time I have to pitch a story to some. Namely, I will attempt to more fully ascertain what they are looking for, and so spin