A longtime baseball columnist had some unusual advice for aspiring journalists at William Paterson: Don’t nod too much.
Ken Davidoff, who reported for 20 years for Newsday and the New York Post, told students in a Sports Writing class on Monday, Nov. 18, that he received the same head-spinning suggestion when he started making television appearances years ago on MLB Network.
“I am a nodder by nature,” Davidoff said. “Maybe you’ve noticed already: I tend to nod a lot. I was told that I need to stop nodding so much. It’s distracting. It’s weird. So, I worked on that, and then I got more confidence.”
Davidoff, who appeared as part of a speaker series sponsored by the William Paterson Society of Professional Journalists, also told students hoping to work in television journalism to embrace writing.
“You can get to a level when other people are writing your scripts, but it’s very unlikely at the start of your career,” he said. “It’s important for all of you to develop that skill. A lot of these people, as they’re starting on sports radio or TV, they’re still sometimes writing columns for the website. So, obviously, it’s a critical part of your journey.”
Davidoff also recommended that students writing sports columns read as much as possible and develop “a consistency of theme, consistency of tone.”
“When I would write a column, I was thinking about, All right, what’s my opponent going to say?” he told the class. “Those who disagreed with me, what are they going to say? And I would try to shoot that down proactively.”
He also stressed the importance of a large vocabulary.
“Whether you like podcasts or movies, whatever it is, when other people’s words enter your brain, it expands your vocabulary and your way of thinking,” he said.
Davidoff was the final speaker in the series from the William Paterson Society of Professional Journalists, which is advised by Dr. Hirshon. Previous speakers included New York Times editor Christopher Mele; former New York Post sportswriter George King; New York Post copy editor Anthony Locicero, a 2010 William Paterson alum; and former “Nightline” producer Steven Baker, who graduated from WP in 2004.
