Paul Daugherty Interview

            You may know him as Doc, TML, The Morning Man, or simply “that sports guy who writes for the Cincinnati Enquirer,” but all nicknames aside, sports columnist Paul Daugherty is one of the best journalists in the country. Mr. Daugherty was kind enough to agree to an interview, so make sure to stock up on your “Doc” in this article since he is on a leave of absence from the Enquirer until March.

Courtesy of http://www.montgomerywomansclub.org/TownHall.html

·         Who or what was your inspiration to become a sports journalist?

            "I was covering county government for a couple of years coming out of college. I wouldn’t say I was inspired by any journalists, I was inspired by really good writers. This is going to sound strange but a guy named Rod Serling, who used to narrate a show called the “Twilight Zone,” well it was very popular many years before you were born. Rod Serling actually worked for WLW for a while and was a terrific writer. There were sports columnists that inspired me, a guy named Dave Kindred, who is working solely for Golf Digest magazine these days but he wrote in Louisville, he wrote for the Washington Post, and the Atlantic Journal Constitution. But to be honest with you, I didn’t leave college intending to be a sports writer, what happened was I covered county government for two years and was bored by it and the sports editing job came open at the paper I was working for at the time and I figured, you know, I’m bored with what I’m doing and I like sports and I know sports, we’ll see if we can have some fun with this. Nobody really inspired me to be a sports journalist, it just kind of happened."

 ·         Where and how did you get your start working for a newspaper?

            "My first job was covering county government for a newspaper called the Carroll County Times, that is now a suburb of Baltimore. It’s in Westminster, Maryland. When I was there, it was pretty much farm country, now it’s evolved into a suburb. I got that job right out of college and did the county government thing for two years and then did two more years as a sports editor there before I took another job somewhere else."

 ·         What has it been like writing for the Cincinnati Enquirer?

            "It's been great. They kind of leave me alone, let me do my own thing. I’ve certainly been a lot of places and pretty much seen the world working for the Enquirer. And the Post for a matter of fact, I worked at the Cincinnati Post when I first got here. I’ve been to five summer Olympics all over the world, probably fifteen World Series, went to twenty Super Bowls, so the experience has been terrific. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it, it’s allowed me to write about games for a living and pretty much keep my own schedule. Nobody tells me what to write and when to come in, I don’t even have a desk downtown. I work at home or I work from wherever the game is that I’m covering. I have the freedom to do what I want to do and do things I like and have the ability to travel and see the world and get paid for it."

 ·         What is a typical day like for you and what is your favorite part about your job?

            "A typical day…I’m up really early. I don’t know if you read The Morning Line or not, my daily blog, but I do that first. I usually start that at about 7:30. I’m generally done with that by about ten. If I’ve got a column to do for the paper the following day then I’ll be thinking about that at that point and if I have to go somewhere for a game, then I’ll go. If I have to make phone calls to talk to somebody about the column that I’m writing I’ll be doing that. I do most of my work at home. I’ve got an office in my house. If I’m not at a game, then I’m working at home, so I’m calling people on the phone and I’m going to the ballpark."

 ·         What is your dream job or your next step in your career as a sports journalist?

            "I wouldn’t say it’s a dream job, but I actually just started a two-month leave of absence. I’m working on a book on my daughter. She’s twenty-two and has Down Syndrome, goes to college, and is a really cool kid. She’s inspirational and that’s my thing right now. That’s my dream job to be able to right books, not necessarily about sports but about topics that interest me and I think I can make money doing. I enjoy working at the paper and they pay me well, it’s kind of cool to get paid to watch sporting events. I wouldn’t say it is my dream job anymore. I’ve been doing it for a long time, my dream job would be to get me away from having to produce something every day and allow me to do what I’m doing now, just to work on something long term like a book."

 ·         How do you see the future of journalism turning out with both print and online media?

            "I think eventually there will be no print. I think everything will be online and I think we’re heading in that direction now. I think the only reason that we haven’t completely gone that way yet is because people of my generation and older, by that I mean people fifty years and up, still like getting the paper delivered. They like the feel of the newspaper, it’s what they’re used to. I think once those people die, people like you and even a generation older than you have grown up getting their information from the laptop. And I think once those people are my age, I would guess that the transformation will be complete. There may be some papers that still print,  the New York Times maybe, the Wall Street Journal, maybe some of the really big daily papers in this country but we’re trending towards the online thing and as soon as the people who run the country and run the businesses in this country are those that right now are maybe a little younger, they’re used to getting their news online. As soon as those people start taking charge of things, I think print newspapers are going to go the way of the eight-track tapes."

 ·         What advice would you give for high school or college students interested in becoming sports journalists?

            "I taught an advanced reporting class at UC for four years and I gave them the same advice, which is read good writing. It doesn’t have to be sports writing, in fact, it’s probably better if it’s not sports writing. Find authors that you like and read what they have to say. I always told people to read for style as much as content. Don’t worry so much about the story as how the person is telling the story. That would be my first advice, my second advice is to be willing to go anywhere and do just about anything. I think there are more jobs in my field now than ever before because of the online side of it, the problem is because there are more jobs and more interest in it, the competition for the good ones is a lot more fierce and because of that employers are able to not pay you as much. So I would suggest that if you want to do this for a career be prepared not to make a ton of money, at least certainly not right away and maybe not ever, depending on how good you are. I was lucky in that I was in this generation where the newspaper was predominant and I made my mark and earned a really nice living before all of the cutbacks and that kind of thing. I don’t think people can do that anymore. I think there are more jobs out there doing what I do but they won’t pay as well. My advice is read good writing and don’t say no."

·         What was it like writing a book with Chad Ochocinco?

            "(Laughs) Well, I have to tell you Chad, what Chad did that was most helpful was approve my access to his background. In other words, there were certain people that I needed to speak with about his life that would not have spoken with me had he not given the OK. Being like an active participant in the book, I wouldn’t say that Chad was a ton of help. He made other people available to help me, but in terms of being really revealing and helping me out a whole bunch on his life, I would say he didn’t do a lot. That being said, Chad back then was easy to work with and I think we had a good time and I think he liked the finished product."

 ·         Who is your favorite athlete that you have ever interviewed or reported on?

            "Most of them are pretty good. The ones that I like are the ones that can talk about things other than their sport. There’s not a lot of them like that, but there are a few. I always liked Boomer Esiason, got along great with him because he could talk about all kinds of different things. Eric Davis remains one of my favorite guys. He’s just a good human being. That’s a good question and I get asked that a lot, but I don’t know because if only one or two or three were great, I’d remember them, but honestly most of them have been really good to deal with."

·         How can the Bengals improve in the offseason?

            "Keep adding good players. That sounds obvious but that’s not so obvious around here. They haven’t; after the ’05 season they didn’t build on that, after the ’09 season they didn’t build on that and both years after they took a dive. I think they have a chance now with the young players that they have and the extra draft picks that they got from the Carson Palmer thing. They just need to really build on what they did this year. Whether they’ll do it or not, I have no idea. It’s easy to be skeptical because of how they’ve run their business over the last twenty years. They have a chance to get better, I’ll put it that way, whether they take advantage of it, I don’t know."

·         What are your thoughts on the UC-XU brawl and its aftermath?

            "I thought it was a black eye for the city. I think that there’s a possibility that they’ll put that game on hiatus for a couple of years to allow fans in particular to miss it a little bit and to think about why they got it taken away. I’m all for allowing the game to go on, but I would like to see some sort of community project that both teams could take part in. Why can’t the Xavier and the UC basketball players next summer, instead of going to some summer camp playing basketball, build a Habitat for Humanity house together? Why can’t they serve dinner at the drop-in center around Christmas? Both teams having to work together, I think that would be very beneficial. But to answer your question, I thought it was horrible, that it was a black eye for the city and that hopefully everybody’s learned from and hopefully things won’t be as bad in the future as they were this year."

·         How do you think the Reds will do with an improved roster in a weakened N.L. Central this season?

            "I think their aim now is to win it and they’re going for it obviously. They brought in Madsen, they brought in Latos, they brought in Marshall, and they still need a left fielder, but I think their idea is to win the thing this year and I think they have a good chance, given what’s happened with Pujols and what’s going to happen to Fielder and what happened to Ryan Braun. Their biggest competitors are losing some of their best players. I think the road is open for the Reds and I think they intend on driving through it and I’m pretty optimistic about it."