A love of writing

It's been a while since I've blogged. I used to do a blog called "The Cranky Copy Editor," but that was years ago. 

I am trying to get more of a social media presence out there, hence this blog, on which I hope to share some of my writing and a few tips on the craft.

A little about me: I am a journalism professor and a former reporter and editor. I have been published in The Denver Post, the Connecticut Post, the Durham (North Carolina) Herald-Sun, the Greeley Tribune and the Johnstown (Colorado) Breeze.

You might wonder why I'm calling this blog "News Boi."

I started reading newspapers when I was very young. I remember in sixth grade, my social studies teacher, Mr. Solecki, made reading the town paper part of our homework. Each week we would have a news quiz based on the paper's content. Mr. Solecki told us that anyone who got four 100s in a row would not have to take the quizzes anymore. I promptly got four perfect scores, but I continued taking the tests, just for fun. 

When I was a kid, our family subscribed to three daily newspapers: The New York Times, The New Haven Register and the Milford Citizen. I enjoyed seeing the local news in the Citizen, but I also loved reading the sports news in the Times. I guess reading those papers taught me how to write a news story. When I got to high school and started writing for the school paper, I crafted my stories like the writers in the Times did.

My first newspaper job was covering high school sports at the Citizen. I learned an awful lot from my editor, Dom Amore, who is now a sports writer for the Hartford Courant. 

 I guess what I'm trying to say is that I truly love news, and that I truly love sports, and I truly love writing. I combined those passions for a few years, working as a sports copy editor at the Connecticut Post and then as a sports reporter for the Herald-Sun. 

Now I teach college students how to report, write and edit. It's the perfect job for me. Of course, my favorite class is Sports Reporting.

But what about "boi"? More on that next time. ...