This article was adapted from an original blog post by Adjunct Professor of Communication Laurie Volkmann.
Tennis reporters Courtney Nguyen and Ben Rothenberg traveled to Charleston to cover the Family Circle Cup during the week of April 6, 2015. While they were in town, communication professor Laurie Volkmann asked Nguyen and Rothenberg to speak to her Message Design and Influence course.
Image courtesy of the Palmetto State Racket blog.
Nguyen handles U.S. tennis coverage for SI.com and Rothenberg is a freelancer covering tennis with the New York Times, Slate and the Guardian, among others.
1. Start a blog!
Nguyen was a lawyer in California until a few years ago. One night she decided to start a blog about the thing she loved – and it wasn’t law.
Photo of Nguyen from her blog, Forty Deuce Twits.
“I was sitting around and after some drinks was thinking, ‘I have thoughts. They need to be shared! So I started a blog,” Nguyen laughed.
Her blog, Forty Deuce Twits, gained loyal followers over the next year and soon SI.com was asking her to manage its SI.com Tennis blog.
“I’m still shocked I’m employed,” Nguyen said, remembering the first tournament she attended representing her own blog. She’s come a long way, making @fortydeucetwits a known force on the tennis media circuit over the four years she’s maintained it.
Nguyen often writes features for major tournament program magazines, appears frequently on radio tennis shows and can be found on a joint podcast with fellow blogger Rothenberg.
Rothenberg, who studied anthropology and crime and punishment at the University of Michigan, also decided he much preferred sports blogs to anything related to what he studied in college, so he started going to tennis tournaments and writing about them via @DailyForehand for a low-paying opportunity with SBNation’s tennis blog.
2. Good questions matter.
It was actually his quirky questions that got the attention of a New York Times reporter and ultimately led to his freelance gig with the Times and others.
Photo of Rothenberg from his Twitter account, @BenRothenberg.
Rothenberg called them “questions no one else was dumb enough to ask,” but Nguyen defended him, saying, “He always asks questions that get to players’ personalities, and that’s a huge asset,” she said.
It’s also a good lesson for aspiring journalists and bloggers, the two noted – add to the conversation instead of saying what everyone else is. Being a who says something different is the key.
“Find a gap that you want to fill,” Rothenberg advised, pointing out the tennis world doesn’t need another ode to Roger Federer, but it could definitely use a feature on an up-and-coming no-name player. “Be an expert on a smaller niche and you’ll get noticed.”
3. If you put in the time and sacrifice, it will pay off – eventually.
Nguyen’s big break came in September 2014 when she chose to cover a tournament in China. On the way there, she learned that China’s tennis darling, Li Na, was going to announce her retirement at the tournament. Nguyen worked tirelessly to secure an exclusive interview with Na.
“I was like, ‘You owe me. I have been the only American reporter in her press conferences at every single tournament for years. You owe me this interview.’ And it worked,” Nguyen said.
4. Be willing to dig a little deeper.
Nguyen’s law skills come in handy in her new field, in which she prides herself on being able to get good answers out of the players who are not always forthcoming in press conferences.
“My experience as a lawyer taught me how to interview; I know how to read a room,” Nguyen said. “I know you’ll talk if I can just get you there.”
But both Nguyen and Rothenberg acknowledged it can be tough to get anything more than clichés from players, especially veterans of the sport who have dealt with media countless times.
Additionally, both writers have learned lessons in a sports-reporting world that neither was trained in. Rothenberg recalled covering one of his first tournaments and saying to Australian Samantha Stosur after she lost a match, “So that was bad.” Although that blunt question did not end the interview immediately, it did derail it significantly.
“So I learned from that,” Rothenberg admitted.
5. Have fun.
Both Nguyen and Rothenberg agree that having fun with writing is important. “We cut through the noise,” Rothenberg said of their early work. In fact, the duo’s podcast, No Challenges Remaining, is an attempt to get back to their original voices without being under the umbrella of SI.com or the New York Times.
“We were young and punkish,” Rothenberg added. “But we still do that to a certain extent.” The two use the podcast as a platform for their more humorous opinions, making sure to keep the content light and different from each reporter’s primary outlet.
In other words, what makes writing fun for the writer is probably what makes it fun for his or her readers, so don’t sacrifice that tone or perspective just because it may not translate into professional writing!
