Mod. Notice Write for The BigFooty News

[Chief]

Ever wanted to write about footy but didn't know how to get into it? Here's your chance.

BigFooty is launching an exciting new project. The BigFooty News.

From early next year, The BigFooty News will be arriving in the inboxes of every BigFooty member and more at least once a week. We'll have features, reports on every club by dedicated correspondents, news stories, funnies and much more.

We're looking for people from the BigFooty world to take part. You might be writing match reports, visiting training, doing an interview with a player or club official. You could be helping with the design of the News, or simply supplying some tips you reckon others should follow up.

If you have experience or training in writing or online publishing, that'd be an advantage but we're really keen to hear from absolutely anyone who is interested. It doesn't matter where you live in Australia or overseas, if you think you've got something to contribute, drop us a line:

bigfootynews@gmail.com

All we ask is that you be mindful of the fact that if you do commit to taking part in the project it will be just that: a commitment.

We'll leave a window of two weeks for people to let us know they are interested and be kicking off proceedings in January withy a view to sending out the first edition on February 17, to coincide with the first NAB Cup games - the return of footy!

Look forward to hearing from you.


The BigFooty News Team
bigfootynews@gmail.com


PS: If you'd like to tip us off about some news you can drop us a line at bigfootynews@gmail.com. All tips are completely confidential.


PPS: You can elect not to receive The BigFooty News via your Messaging and Notifications options:

http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/profile.php?do=editoptions

 

[Tex_21]

If Carbs doesn't get a gig, I'm starting an Occupy protest.

What does it pay btw?

 

[LeverPuller]

Popped off an email.

 

[BigFootyNews]

Hi all.

I'm happy to answer any questions here that people might have. I think it is better to do it this way rather than via email so that other people who may be wondering the same thing can see the answer and save us all the hassle.

There's no payment at this stage for taking part, but the project is managed by people with a lot of experience in the field and we'd be happy to write references etc (down the track) for people who get involved and make it a real success. (I'm thinking students etc here who might be looking for a leg up in media type studies).

Also, we won't be replying to emails (and thanks to those who have already indicated interest) with detailed info and possibly taking things forward for a fortnight.

The plan is to give people enough time to see this and decide if they want to get involved with/have enough time to get involved and so on.

We will leave this thread up until December 1st and then get replying and organising.

if there's anything you need to know that is personal or you don't feel comfortable posting publicly, drop me a PM.

Best,

BigFootyNews

 

[LeverPuller]

Hi all.

I'm happy to answer any questions here that people might have. I think it is better to do it this way rather than via email so that other people who may be wondering the same thing can see the answer and save us all the hassle.

There's no payment at this stage for taking part, but the project is managed by people with a lot of experience in the field and we'd be happy to write references etc (down the track) for people who get involved and make it a real success. (I'm thinking students etc here who might be looking for a leg up in media type studies).

Also, we won't be replying to emails (and thanks to those who have already indicated interest) with detailed info and possibly taking things forward for a fortnight.

The plan is to give people enough time to see this and decide if they want to get involved with/have enough time to get involved and so on.

We will leave this thread up until December 1st and then get replying and organising.

if there's anything you need to know that is personal or you don't feel comfortable posting publicly, drop me a PM.

Best,

BigFootyNews

That's fair enough. And yeah, one of the big reasons I'm doing this is to try and get a leg up - got a few life plans that I'm trying to work out, and journalism is one of them.

 

[Tulip]

I'm with Striker, pretty much the same boat really.

Email was sent earlier.

 

[BigFootyNews]

Good to hear Striker475 and High Flying Flag.

You'll get a form response soon acknowledging receipt of your email.

Things will kick up to the next stage of development in early December.

BFN

 

[Beloved]

For those thinking of getting into the business, this is the perfect avenue. Your content will be going out to BigFooty's 110,000+ members; usually your first writing job is something very low key. This is an opportunity to make a name for yourself early in your writing career.

Get involved.

 

[millsy29gopies]

In the same boat as Striker and HFF. Journalism is certainly something I want to do when I finish school.

 

[PTizzle]

Sent an email, studying journalism stuff at uni currently and would love to be a sports writer in the future. Cheers for the opportunity!

 

[scruffydog]

Interesting... I do love to write, although I've never thought about writing footy related articles/match reports. That could be rather fun.

I doubt I'd have time to do anything apart from match reports though (I can't even visit my own team's training, which makes me sad), so I'll probably have to give this a miss.

I doubt people need money as an incentive here. Shane Hird is dreaming if he thinks people should get paid for this. Maybe later on, but as a start-up, no way. It could be great fun, and has other advantages. You could meet your favourite players and tell them you write for BigFooty news, which is awesome in itself (although you could just say that anyway, whether or not it's true ).

 

[Jesus Baulks]

Slave labour, awesome

 

[Shane Hird]

Interesting... I do love to write, although I've never thought about writing footy related articles/match reports. That could be rather fun. Shane Hird is dreaming if he thinks people should get paid for this. Maybe later on, but as a start-up, no way.

I doubt I'd have time to do anything apart from match reports though (I can't even visit my own team's training, which makes me sad), so I'll probably have to give this a miss.

I doubt people need money as an incentive here. It could be great fun, and has other advantages. You could meet your favourite players and tell them you write for BigFooty news, which is awesome in itself (although you could just say that anyone, whether or not it's true ).

Why would anyone want to read a match report on BF news when there's already 10,000 of them every week on dozens of websites..half of which are already written and on the BF team boards five minutes after a game?

The only people who could be bothered and will do it for free would be people like uni journo students.

The writing would have to good to hold my attention.

 

[BigFootyNews]

So..people write articles and stuff for no payment, but you guys get free content for your site which leads to more advertising bucks from the businesses who will promote themselves on the new 'BF News'..

Essentially. We are looking at ways we can reward or compensate people who take part but at this stage, it won't be via cash payments. That said, we're taking a long term view and maybe it will end up at the point where we can pay people.

That said, a lot of the people who are responding say they want a career in the media or journalism. The reality is that every single person working as a journo right now got there largely because they did a lot of unpaid stuff - internships, writing for uni papers, all that stuff for free.

As I said, there's people involved in setting up this project with serious journalism experience. If somebody gets involved and works hard and produces good quality stuff, it is going to get a readership and it will show that they can deliver the goods. That will help them immensely as they start off their career.

Never forget how Eddie McGuire got his start: unpaid volunteer work taking stats etc.

And I wish you blokes would get real about the 110,000 membership quote.

We all know half of those 'members' are inactive/old usernames that never get used.

Probably. But all the print organs like The Age and The Australian routinely pad out their "circulation" figures by pretending that the 150 papers a day a big company buys that just sit on a waiting room coffee table and don't get read are the same as a "real buy". Same with the thousands of copies that get given away at airports etc.

I can guarantee you that BigFooty gets far more eyeball time in Melbourne than The Australian does.

Don't want to sound negative, but if you really want people to invest a few hours a week to write quality stuff..why not pay for the good ones?

Because we are just starting off. We thinking about getting one or two professional journalists top write a few pieces and we'll pay for that. As it is, if our contributors aren't professionals, why should they get paid?

But the aim of this project is not to ape the (rapidly failing) model of the traditional press.

The BigFooty News will be different. It is a product of the wider BigFooty community for the BigFooty community. Already we have people here who post immensely detailed phantom drafts, we've seen memes that started here like the MS Paint thread (a regular version of which which will be featuring in the BFN) get picked up by Fox Sports, Crikey has re-printed blogs by members.

There's a huge amount of great stuff here that people post for nix as it is. The BFN is about collating, disseminating and celebrating that.

This isn't about starting anew version of The Age footy section with all the aspects - both brilliant and teeth-grindingly annoying - that goes with that territory.

It is about trying to create something new that is interesting, readable, informative and entertaining.

 

[BigFootyNews]

Slave labour, awesome

Nobody is being forced to do anything.

If you're not interested in taking part, well and good.

 

[vWestCoast]

I'm going to be heading to a lot of the Eagles pre season training sessions.

Was planning to do a write up each team and post on the teams board but might email a few in if I think it's up to scratch ?

If needed I could help with the design of the news. Wouldn't be the best at it but if needed i'll have a crack.

 

[BigFootyNews]

Why would anyone want to read a match report on BF news when there's already 10,000 of them every week on dozens of websites..half of which are already written and on the BF team boards five minutes after a game?

The only people who could be bothered and will do it for free would be people like uni journo students.

The writing would have to good to hold my attention.

Shane Hird,

This thread is to let people know the project is kicking off and giving them a contact point in the event they are interested.

Perhaps you could at least wait until the first edition comes out before criticising it so much?

Best,

BigFootyNews

 

[PTizzle]

Why would anyone want to read a match report on BF news when there's already 10,000 of them every week on dozens of websites..half of which are already written and on the BF team boards five minutes after a game?

The only people who could be bothered and will do it for free would be people like uni journo students.

The writing would have to good to hold my attention.

If you've ever talked to journalism students you'll know that they're very keen for exposure and would be happy to do it for free. Most of us love writing which is why we study it.

I doubt it'll just be match reports, I think there will be blokes going out to training sessions, blokes who know players or can get interviews, interstate perspectives and so on.

 

[BigFootyNews]

I'm going to be heading to a lot of the Eagles pre season training sessions.

Was planning to do a write up each team and post on the teams board but might email a few in if I think it's up to scratch ?

If needed I could help with the design of the news. Wouldn't be the best at it but if needed i'll have a crack.

That'd be great. We're really keen to get training reports and the like.

Drop an email to bigfootynews@gmail.com and mentioned the Eagles stuff.

Best,

BFN

 

[Shane Hird]

It is about trying to create something new that is interesting, readable, informative and entertaining.

If it's all that I'll probably be reading it.

But I have a hard enough time wading through all the crap that's written on BF just to find something interesting to read.

 

[BigFootyNews]

I doubt it'll just be match reports, I think there will be blokes going out to training sessions, blokes who know players or can get interviews, interstate perspectives and so on.

Correct. We're going to see what kind of mix of people we get, and like any embryonic media it will evolve as it goes.

We're aiming to have a weekly feature, training reports, DreamTeam and SuperCoach stuff, light-hearted things. We may not even have 9 match reports a week. We'll see how it goes.

 

[bombermick]

Sent email

 

[Pie 4 Life]

Have sent an email, keen on doing whatever I can

 

[cos789]

Good to see some new ideas but off the top of my head I see AFL covered by a myriad of media sources, Wordfootynews has an excellent coverage of international events so that really leaves the second tier comps which are covered in local newspapers.
Maybe it would be a good avenue for supporter groups to publise events.

 

[Johnson#26]

Essentially. We are looking at ways we can reward or compensate people who take part but at this stage, it won't be via cash payments. That said, we're taking a long term view and maybe it will end up at the point where we can pay people.

That said, a lot of the people who are responding say they want a career in the media or journalism. The reality is that every single person working as a journo right now got there largely because they did a lot of unpaid stuff - internships, writing for uni papers, all that stuff for free.

As I said, there's people involved in setting up this project with serious journalism experience. If somebody gets involved and works hard and produces good quality stuff, it is going to get a readership and it will show that they can deliver the goods. That will help them immensely as they start off their career.

Completely agree. I'd advise any budding journalist to have a serious look at this. If you're not willing to put in the hard labour, then you're not going to get very far. It's a great initiative