Buddy Hield's unusual message to teammates

I haven't said anything over the past few weeks for fear someone on the board knows her, and I didn't wish to offend. But she is awful. How in the world did she ever get hired, even at a fishwrap like the Oklahoman?
 
I haven't said anything over the past few weeks for fear someone on the board knows her, and I didn't wish to offend. But she is awful. How in the world did she ever get hired, even at a fishwrap like the Oklahoman?

Given the state of newspapers financial health I am sure her salary is very low...something like $25k. She is getting ojt as the OU beat writer, sad state of affairs for newspapers.
 
Aren't we being a little tough on the young lady? Some people just have more natural ability than others and are successful in their chosen fields from the get-go. It can take longer for others. Hopefully, Kuzy's writing skills will improve as she gains experience.
 
Aren't we being a little tough on the young lady? Some people just have more natural ability than others and are successful in their chosen fields from the get-go. It can take longer for others. Hopefully, Kuzy's writing skills will improve as she gains experience.

yeah hopefully within a couple years she will go from writing about benches and pedicures and helmet visors to talking about gatorade vs powerade and fans throwing the footballs over the stadium
 
Aren't we being a little tough on the young lady? Some people just have more natural ability than others and are successful in their chosen fields from the get-go. It can take longer for others. Hopefully, Kuzy's writing skills will improve as she gains experience.

Presuming she got her degree in journalism, shouldn't she have been honing her craft in college?
 
For anyone interested, her background: Stephanie Kuzydym

Not all internships are created equal, but she should have enough professional experience from that to not have to learn on the job. Indiana seems to have a well-regarded journalism school from what I can tell. It still takes talent to do well, though, no matter how good the education.

One of the big problems facing journalism today is that there's still a huge demand for content (higher than ever) but no way to monetize most of it. So you end up with low salaries at entry-level jobs ($25k probably isn't too far off). Anyone who shows an aptitude for the profession is going to be identified quickly by someone with more money, and they'll get an offer local outlets can't match (see: David Ubben). It's not always difficult to find good reporters, but it is difficult to keep them.
 
IU does have a good journalism school (http://journalism.indiana.edu/) housed in a building named after the most famous American war correspondent ever, Ernie Pyle. While IU basketball is a religion, consider that Kuzy would've been in school during Sampson's last year and the first 3 years of Crean, which were brutal. She probably spent most of her time writing fluff pieces b/c the team was so bad. Who know?

The problem with football is that it generally finds itself so far behind baketball, tailgating, men's soccer and even cycling (Little 500) in the minds of most IU fans and alum. In fact the tailgating got so big, the university shut down all on-campus tailgating beginning at the start of each home game b/c no student were showing up. Kevin Wilson is actually truning things around, but during her tenure, IU FB and BB went through some of it worst years- and that's saying something in football.

On a BB note, Hanner Perea and Peter Jurkens are eligible to play this weekend- the very rich get richer...
 
If her education suffered because the teams were bad, then maybe Indiana's journalism school shouldn't be considered any good after all...
 
If her education suffered because the teams were bad, then maybe Indiana's journalism school shouldn't be considered any good after all...

I was also unaware that in order to develop quality journalism skills you must constantly be surrounded by winning football and basketball programs.
 
On a BB note, Hanner Perea and Peter Jurkens are eligible to play this weekend- the very rich get richer...

Wouldn't call IU the "very rich".

Kentucky, Duke, UNC, and Kansas are the "Very Rich".

Indiana has made it past the sweet sixteen ONCE since 1993...ONCE!!

I'd put Oklahoma on the same tier as Indiana in the last 20 years...

Kentucky for instance, in that same time span, has been to ELEVEN elite eights, 5 final fours, and won 3 national championships.

Sorry, my best friend is an IU fan and I have to put up with him running his mouth a lot...
 
Meh, many modern day journalist are playing to their crowd. Have you seen what interests people today?? Many well written, informative articles are wasted on the blog/facebook/entertainment driven masses today.

The days of old, where journalists had to write articles of substance are just as gone as the days where singers actually had to be singers and not entertainers, & you actually had to have basic educational skills to get a degree.

We discuss this daily at my job. As a Child Welfare Investigator, I probably write 12-30 District Attorney reports per month. You also have to type in your interviews with each child, adult, collateral witnesses, character witnesses, etc. In other words you must be able to write, and at a pretty high level.

Unfortunately, with the desperate attempt to hire and keep Child Welfare Workers, we are constantly hiring and working short handed. They will take anyone with a Bachelor's Degree in any field. Of course those of us with Human Services/Social Work based degrees can move up quicker, but we have plenty of case workers with journalism degrees, business degrees, you name it!!!

Every day I read reports written by my workers, and other people's workers, and they are full of basic grammatical errors. It amazes me who receives degrees these days!!!! I'm not talking texting errors where spell check gets you, I'm talking basic spelling errors, sentences formatted wrong, etc.

The DA's Office recently started having to run our reports through spellcheck just to read the reports. Each worker has spellcheck on their basic template!!!!

Yep, I totally can see why journalism has taken a fall, as has most academic institutions......
 
Yep, I totally can see why journalism has taken a fall, as has most academic institutions......

The drop in writing skills is no doubt evident (and disheartening) in every field of endeavor, but in journalism, it is doubly so.

But there's no way the writer in question was the cream of the IU crop in her graduating class. No way.

I have no idea how she ended up at the Oklahoman, but something's fishy: She's somebody's niece, she's working for free, she has compromising pictures of the publisher, something.

I understand the practice, too, of larger, better publications stealing away talented writers from smaller pubs, but an OKC paper should at least hold out for writers who can string together words and communicate ideas passably well. I mean, we're not talking the Okemah Weekly Leader here.
 
Meh, many modern day journalist are playing to their crowd. Have you seen what interests people today?? Many well written, informative articles are wasted on the blog/facebook/entertainment driven masses today.

The days of old, where journalists had to write articles of substance are just as gone as the days where singers actually had to be singers and not entertainers, & you actually had to have basic educational skills to get a degree.

We discuss this daily at my job. As a Child Welfare Investigator, I probably write 12-30 District Attorney reports per month. You also have to type in your interviews with each child, adult, collateral witnesses, character witnesses, etc. In other words you must be able to write, and at a pretty high level.

Unfortunately, with the desperate attempt to hire and keep Child Welfare Workers, we are constantly hiring and working short handed. They will take anyone with a Bachelor's Degree in any field. Of course those of us with Human Services/Social Work based degrees can move up quicker, but we have plenty of case workers with journalism degrees, business degrees, you name it!!!

Every day I read reports written by my workers, and other people's workers, and they are full of basic grammatical errors. It amazes me who receives degrees these days!!!! I'm not talking texting errors where spell check gets you, I'm talking basic spelling errors, sentences formatted wrong, etc.

The DA's Office recently started having to run our reports through spellcheck just to read the reports. Each worker has spellcheck on their basic template!!!!

Yep, I totally can see why journalism has taken a fall, as has most academic institutions......

I just kept saying "amen" throughout this whole post. I've noted this in my line of work as well...
 
I have a journalism degree. I get paid by the Department of Defense and I make close to 4 times what junior writers at the Oklahoman make.

That should tell you all you need to know about this topic.
 
I have a journalism degree. I get paid by the Department of Defense and I make close to 4 times what junior writers at the Oklahoman make.

That should tell you all you need to know about this topic.

That you decided not to follow your passion and went for greed instead?
 
That you decided not to follow your passion and went for greed instead?

Or couldn't hack it as a journalist and found a lucrative fallback option.

Anyone who goes into journalism hoping to make a ton of money is a fool. The biggest problem isn't the money. The problem is there are far more jobs than there are talented writers.
 
That you decided not to follow your passion and went for greed instead?







Or couldn't hack it as a journalist and found a lucrative fallback option.

Anyone who goes into journalism hoping to make a ton of money is a fool. The biggest problem isn't the money. The problem is there are far more jobs than there are talented writers.

Lol at the "couldn't hack it."

I've been a professional writer for over 15 years now. My first job offer was a position as a sports editor at a small newspaper and I received it 3 days after I took my last final at OU.

Honestly, it is a job I wish I could have taken. But, what they were going to pay me wasn't enough to pay a car loan and my student loan payments... much less anything else on top of it like rent, food, gas, etc.

So, while I made the decision early on that I wouldn't be a journalist, I have been able to make a very good living as a writer. And, I can most assuredly say that it has nothing to do with my ability to "hack it."

I am a writer because it's what I AM, not because I thought it would make me rich. But, I also don't think living below the poverty line should be a requirement to prove I can hack it either.

I think a talented writer will find a way to do what they love AND make a comfortable living in the process. It's just a shame there are very few ways to accomplish that as a journalist.
 
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