Interview With Sports Journalist Jeff Fletcher

Jeff Fletcher is a Los Angeles Angels beat writer for the Orange County Register. He has been covering baseball since 1997 covering multiple world series and all-star games. Before covering the Angels Fletcher covered the bay area teams such as the Oakland A’s and San Francisco Giants. He was lucky enough to cover two of the most important moments of the modern baseball era. Barry Bonds and his record-breaking homeruns as well as the Moneyball era in Oakland that has since become a Hollywood feature film. Moreover, he is also the chairman for the Los Angeles chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America allowing him to place his vote for the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame. I was fortunate enough to have a phone call with Fletcher to discuss his career as a sportswriter, how we started, and what advice he would give to people pursuing this career now days.

Jeff Fletcher attended Ohio University where he studied journalism. He had a part on the school’s newspaper and only continued to grow his journalism career from there. During and after college he was fortunate enough to get internships, one being with the Los Angeles Times, and eventually turned one of those jobs into his first paid job. For Jeff Fletcher there was never another option other than sports journalism and an old site website called FanHouse allowed him to cover baseball all around the country without being tied down to one specific team. Eventually an opening at the OC register came up to cover the Dodgers and Fletcher took this opportunity to apply and perhaps come to LA and cover one of the most historic franchises in quite possibly the biggest market for baseball. The OC register did like Fletcher but had a different team in mind for him. According to Fletcher the OC register liked him just not for the Dodgers. Fletcher was brought on to cover the Angels in 2012 and is currently doing that in the present day. Fletcher does not cover every Angel game but does on occasion travel around the country to write for them.

Baseball is currently seen on the lower end of the sports popularity. Many Americans see basketball and American football as more popular than baseball. Fletcher has admitted that this is true and when asked about how his writing attempts to reach the people of a sport losing its popularity. Fletcher told me that his work cannot persuade people to become baseball fans. He stated that he writes for fans of baseball who couldn’t catch the game or maybe missed some historical significance. His typical day on the job would be to watch the full game of baseball and translate any stories that come out of the game such as injuries, statistics, and of course the final score. Baseball games are typically an average of three hours and it’s not uncommon for the game to last even longer. This is an issue that is currently being discussed by league officials. Baseball plays 162 games consisting of 81 at home and 81 across North America. Considering this season got a late start, games are being played more frequently with less days off. Fletcher admitted that some days baseball can feel more like work than enjoyment of the nation’s pastime. A mixture of the intense travel and long hours can drain the life of even the biggest baseball fan.

Fletcher admitted that sports journalism is a hard field to get started in. He said there is a constant decline in jobs. There were less jobs when he started and assumes there is even less jobs available now. He presented the idea that social media is very important to lead someone to your work. Fletcher uses social media to promote his own website. His website was created more for marketing as Fletcher has a book coming out later this year. He gave me specific advice to finish off our conversation which I am very thankful for. His advice for anyone who wants to study or pursue journalism was, obviously, write as much as you can. Even more important than this would be to write stories that involve you getting information from other people and sources rather than formulating your own ideas. Fletcher went on to explain that a journalist’s ultimate job is to inform the people of things they do not know already.

This interview to me was overall was very informative and I really enjoyed being able to speak about baseball with someone that turned it into their career. I believed that anyone entering sports journalism would not get bored of the game they are covering but I was mistaken. A social media presence is becoming more and more necessary for people aspiring to be journalists. I learned most of all that studying journalism isn’t enough unless you are able to translate information given to you by an outside source into writing that is not only informative and entertaining for an audience to read.