Veteran sports editor adapts to changing industry
Tad Reeve stresses the importance of leadership in editing and reflects on the digital shift of sports journalism.
Even though his job has ruined his sports fandom, Tad Reeve still finds joy in his everyday work and in the successes of his reporters. For 22 years, Reeve has held the position of sports editor at the Pioneer Press and he’s grateful that he still finds himself in that position. Working for the press remotely in Houston with his wife and son, Reeve finds ways to lead his team of six sportswriters through unwavering yet graceful editing.
Q: How did you get from high school to your current position?
A: I will admit, this is what I always wanted to do. I started reading newspapers in fourth grade and I became a daily reader and fan of them, especially sports writers. I just said: this is what I’m going to do. When I went to college, I was a history major because the school I went to [King College] did not have a journalism degree. I did enough writing and I thought I had enough experience; I was the editor of our school paper and I worked for the local newspaper so I felt like I was on track.
When I was getting out of college, the local paper in Bristol, Tennessee offered me a job. I think it was $125 a week. This is back in 1980, so I was all excited because I’m like, hey, I’m ready to get into my career. Then, one of the guys from another college that I knew through sports was working on the staff. I started talking to him and he was telling me about how he lived in a house with four other guys like he was still in college so I decided that’s it, I couldn’t take this job.
I went down to Florida because at the time, in the 1980s, Florida newspapers were just booming. So I hooked up with a newspaper in Sarasota, Florida and I stayed there. I stayed in Sarasota and Bradenton, two newspapers there, until 1991 before I came up to be the sports editor in La Crosse, Wisconsin. I was in Wisconsin for ten years then I came over to St. Paul where I’ve been at the Pioneer Press for twenty-two years.
“I would say a good editor sticks to their guns and enforces their level of what they want to see from everybody and what they want a story to look like.” — Tad Reeve, editor
Q: What makes a good editor?
A: This is a question to me of: What makes a good boss?
I’ve got six writers. They’re just really, really good and they’re kind of entrepreneurial, so I have complete trust in them. And because of this staff, that allows me to manage the way I want to manage, I want to give my staff as much rope as they can handle but I completely trust them to do their job.
In terms of editing, I’m kind of a careful editor who watches our staff who all have their little quirks so they all need to be edited. I want to set a certain standard that when it hits our website or hits print. I want it to read like people took care of the copy. Every now and then some reporters just really require some heavy editing.
I’ve got one guy, he’s a good reporter and he’s very diligent, but he struggles with a lot of basic things like singular and plural. One thing is that I try to be careful and I don’t try to be too heavy-handed with the reporters because we have them going at 100 percent all the time. I want to be careful with how I interact with them.
Q: What is the greatest barrier to entry for editors?
A: I would say a good editor sticks to their guns and enforces their level of what they want to see from everybody and what they want a story to look like. I think a barrier would be someone who doesn’t care about that level of acceptable work, or just lets go of that standard.
Another thing, as I said, I try not to be too heavy-handed with reporters or too loose with them because you have to control the mob. They have to work with you and you have to work with them and if you’re too hard on them, you could lose the crowd, possibly. In my mind, you don’t want to do that. You want to keep them all working together because there are things you want in a million different directions so you need everyone coordinating together and working together.
“Even worse, I cannot watch a random sporting event anymore, on TV or in person.” –Tad Reeve, editor
Q: What is your favorite part of being an editor?
A: I get to point writers in the right direction and then I let them go out and define what the story is going to be. My favorite part of the job is when a reporter turns in a fully formed story that has everything you were hoping for. My favorite part is when I see stories that are trending that way, like “Hey, this person really got it and they handled it.”
Q: Do you still enjoy reading despite editing all day?
A: That’s a very good question because I used to be a voracious reader — books and novels and that sort of thing. I really don’t read that much anymore. Even worse, I cannot watch a random sporting event anymore, on TV or in person.
My wife is a huge sports fan. She grew up in a sports family. She always has what I call a “random” sporting event on TV. Growing up, I became a huge University of Tennessee sports fan, so now I will watch Tennessee stuff on TV and see how they’re doing but I can’t watch the whole game. I can only watch enough to get an update. But other than that, it’s got to be a team that has to do with our coverage.
Q: Are there any ethical dilemmas you’ve faced in your position?
A: I was proud of one of my former interns. We have had interns from the University of Minnesota this fall. I sent an intern with a reporter who covers the Vikings. The intern was a really big Vikings fan so he was very excited in the locker room after the game. He was taking pictures of Justin Jefferson and my reporter had to keep him in line and tell him that the athletes will completely dismiss you and not take you seriously with stuff like that. Players consider that a very serious violation. There are some written and unwritten rules that we follow when it comes to having access to the things we have access to. It was a lesson learned and I feel that my reporter delivered it correctly.
Q: Is there a story you’re most proud of being involved with?
A: I wouldn’t say that there is a particular story but whenever we break legitimate news, it always makes me proud. These days, breaking news has become a completely different thing than when I started. I’m old school and I don’t tweet, but I lurk on Twitter just to see what my reporters are saying. You can break news or break a story on Twitter, and our reporters do that, but then I want them to turn that into a story for the paper or for our website. I get really excited when they [reporters] break a big story.
Q: What are some “expectations vs. reality” moments you have experienced?
A: It’s kind of what I expected. There haven’t been that many surprises.
I am a little surprised however at how the practice has changed from when I started in 1980 until now. The company that owns the Pioneer Press is in New York City and they have papers all over. During the pandemic, they had a financial strategy to get rid of all their offices. Basically, they have papers all over the country where reporters are working from home. That’s what we’ve started doing and it’s been really good for me. When I was an editor elsewhere, I would write and edit but now with the internet, I can edit stories online and get them online during the day and work fully remotely.
The one thing that is harmed is that I don’t get to see my staff. We just communicate by phone, text and email. But we were doing that almost exclusively when I was in the office anyway because the staff would be out covering stuff, so I wasn’t seeing them eight hours a day anyway.
I will say this, I might sound like an old guy, but 15 to 20 years ago, when newspapers started downsizing and laying people off, I survived that storm. I know a lot of good journalists that did not.
Editing not only requires the skill of fixing stories but also requires you to be a good boss. A digital presence is a must when it comes to breaking news and staying up to date on the world of sports. Although sports fandom seems like a direct gateway to the world of sports journalism, a good editor or reporter must put aside their own fandom while working as journalists. Through persistent and balanced leadership, Tad is a survivor. He is a survivor of the corporatization of journalism, the mass layoffs of journalism, COVID-19 and the digitalization of the profession.
