Photo by Whitney Bermes

Nick Lockridge fields a student’s question after talking with UM’s Sports Reporting class in February. Lockridge covers prep sports for the Missoulian.

Sports reporters tell:
What it takes to get job done

By Joe Slemberger
J-School Web reporter           

Sometimes it seems that reporters Phil Buck and Nick Lockridge are everywhere Missoula sports fans are on a Friday night, except a sports bar.

Buck, who is sports director for KPAX television, spends his Friday nights in a mad scramble to film as many games as he can before racing back to the station to assemble the nightly newscast. Lockridge might sit through a hot high school hoops game to the end before racing back to the office to file a game story or two by deadline.

“Most of my coverage happens on Friday and Saturday nights,” Lockridge said.  “I don’t have much spare time on weekends.”

Buck and Lockridge were in Don Anderson Hall recently to talk to Prof. Nadia White’s sports reporting class about covering athletics in Missoula – a small media market but one that covers the far-flung corners of Western Montana.

Sports reporting and general reporting styles aren’t that different, Buck told the class of student journalists.

“You still need basic reporting skills with strong writing and accurate facts in order to tell the story,” he said.  “You have to be willing to get your hands dirty and do the work that others won’t do.  It’ll pay off in the end.”

Lockridge said the job takes dedication and flexibility. Unconventional work hours come with the territory, he said.

Lockridge begins his day around 2 or 3 p.m. and ends around 11:30 p.m., sometimes later.  The late day, Tuesday through Saturday schedule, is ideal for someone that likes to take care of personal business before the workday begins.

“It’s nice not to have to get to work bright and early,” Lockridge said.  “I can ease into my day.” 

Lockridge said he starts his work day slowly, answering e-mails, making phone calls and determining how many pages sports is allotted in the next day’s paper. The pace gathers momentum.

With more than 30 high schools in his coverage area, Lockridge logs many hours and hundreds of miles of windshield time to cover games and standout players.

“There’s a lot of communication with the phone and a lot of little stops just to stay in touch with my sources,” Lockridge said.  “Tournaments are a great place to keep up with everyone and maybe get a good scoop on a young kid who might make an impact.”

Buck agreed that staying in touch was a wide variety of new sources is “huge” in developing stories as well as the development of the reporter.

“Sometimes that’s where you’ll get the biggest scoops,” he said.

Photo by Whitney Bermes

Phil Buck, sports director for KPAX television in Missoula, talks with students in the Sports Reporting and Writing class in February.

Covering sports for local television poses different challenges than doing the same job for a print outlet, Buck said. While fans want the same games covered, the television news format often allows less time for prep sports than the space allotted in the newspaper.

Where Lockridge can stay and watch the ending of a close prep football game, Buck said he has to film and run in order to get to a variety of games. The Missoulian has a larger staff of reporters to fan out and cover games.

After looking in on a number of games, Buck decides which highlights to use in the two to three minutes he might have to tell the story of all the sports news he thinks needs telling for the night.

“It’s tough because there are so many great stories that go untold,” Buck said. “We just don’t have the time.”

 The expansion of local news onto the Internet may solve Buck’s time problem, though the shift poses other challenges as well.

“With our Web page we’re beginning to be able to put out a lot of the stuff we can’t get on TV,” Buck said.

Feeding the Web is increasingly part of a print reporter’s job as well, Lockridge said.

“Our online edition is a big part of my job, although sometimes it’s a real thorn in my side,” Lockridge said.   “Blogs are huge right now.  Live blogging will add a whole new dimension to sports reporting,” he said, describing the growing trend of writers who post rapid fire updates on a sporting event to the Web, as it’s happening.

Lockridge and Buck both graduated from the University of Montana School of Journalism. Buck left the area to work as a news reporter out of Kalispell for a couple of years. He then returned to Missoula to break into sports. Lockridge worked at the Missoulian as a student, earning himself a staff reporter job upon graduation.

Ben Prez, a junior in White’s class who currently covers sports for the Montana Kaimin, said the lively conversation with Buck and Lockridge gave him a clearer sense of the future.

“It was nice to hear a first hand example from a professional that’s currently in the field,” Prez said. “I now have a better understanding of what I need to do to get my feet wet.”

Published March 5, 2008

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