1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - What does the future of sports journalism hold? June 4th: 11:30am

Episode Date: June 4, 2025

What does the future of sports journalism hold? June 4th: 11:30amAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

John and Cortland, good to see you on the text line, bro. This bump to you, kind sir, greatly appreciate it. It's me, it's me. It's D.W. Jackson Clanchett, kind, sir, and having this discussion, because we're in the space, in a broadcast space, where the journalism school with the University of Nebraska, the graduating class, how many people do?

Any idea? I have no clue. Right? Give me a guess about what you think of them. I feel like it'd be like 50 to like 60 kids. Graduating. Yeah. Right?

Degree 60. Are there 60 sports journalism jobs available in the state of Nebraska right now? No. Okay. Okay. No. As my nephew says, okay. Yeah.

No. There is not. What if you're a specialist? What if you want to do play by play? And the guy next to you and the girl next to you want to do sports talk radio. And the couple next to a couple of young people graduates next to them want to do podcasts and blogs. And then you've got three or four that want to be writers. How many of them have jobs available?

In the state of Nebraska, the moment they graduate. I mean. Correct. Like, correct. Correct. Correct. And then here's the thing. The question that coaches are now beginning to ask,

and they're beginning to ask parents, they're beginning to ask athletes, and they're beginning to ask high school coaches. Folks, I have a question for you. If you want your young person to do this professionally or at the next level, whatever that is, college, Juco, pro.

Tell me one person who currently has the job or has the spot that you're better than. And remember in this day of Transfer Porter or NIL, that that's just the J-School at Nebraska. There are other journalism programs in the state.

Do I care if the best radio talent in the state comes from Concordia? or Nebraska Wesleyan rather than the University of Nebraska Lincoln. Do I care? Who am I going to invest in? The best. Yeah, exactly.

The best. And hey, the best has to be better than whoever I have currently. More experience. Because remember, the person I have now has been working. They've been showing up to work. often as an intern and simply doing it

because it's what they think they want to do and then to find out whether they want to do it. Now mind you, it's not for everybody. Even after interns, some people go, uh-uh, that's way much harder than I thought. That seemed fun from a distance. And I love the ability to tell people that I was an intern at the ticket until you got to go toe to toe to J. Foreman or for Sean Jackson

for two hours and then some people reconsider. They reconsider. Maybe that's not it for me. That's not what I should be doing. Right? And your parents can't help you when you're at the ticket. They cannot...

Jackson, your daddy can't call me. No. No, no, no. No, no, no. Come on, now. What's your dad going to tell me about radio? Yeah. What's he?

He ain't, right? Right? And your mom loves you, right? Oh, yeah. Your mom loves you, right? You're a favorite person. Come on.

Right? Right. Can your mom come in here and, excuse me, D.P., I'd like to have a conversation about Jackson's future. Ah, she'd be like, I don't know. No, no. Because, you know what's going to happen?

Jackson's going to tell mom. Am I? Listen. Come on. For both of us. Don't do this. Do not. I'm never going to get, I'm never going to get a job if you go talk to this man. Yeah, come on. It's never.

Right? Because at the door is Rashad. And Rashad's barking anyway. Right. Jay Foreman's just leaning on the, on the doorway. Like, what's that? It's on your mind. And then imagine, imagine that you are amongst the pool of talent at Nebraska, Nebraska Wesleyan,

Concordia, Done, et cetera, all the media people, right? Everybody who thinks that their podcast idea is so fabulous that it has to be the next great thing. I absolutely have to be heard. So I need to get in the pool to get seen, heard, evaluated, trained, developed, etc. And then we say, well, first of all, at our program, at the fine university of the ticket, we actually pay our interns. But that's true. The majority of internships in sports radio aren't paid.

So I've heard. So I heard. We actually pay you to learn, right? Go with me here. Oh, yeah. Go with me. We pay you and then you say, hey, the pay's not enough. I'm going to be so good at this that you should pay me more than you pay.

Come on. Do we understand how ridiculous all this really is? Oh, yeah. Do we, I mean, am I? That for all the bosses out there, right? Now, you could have, you could pitch, you could have recorded in your basement 50 episodes of the best podcast I've ever heard. Right?

What's the likelihood that Rudy has also recorded 50 podcasts and Ellie and, right? Yeah. Right? What if I only have one spot? Oh. You know what? Might be a good idea for you to learn how to board out. Come on now. Right. Hey, come on. Right. It might be a good idea for you to learn how to cut content. It might be a good idea for you to offer to work more hours than everybody else. It may be. Hey, because the other. radio stations are cutting back. They got to get to 105. They got to get to 105.

They got to get to 105. And they don't have the paid internships. They're forced. They got to pay minimum wage, but they don't have to offer you X number of hours. Yeah. Right? They can't get you in the situation. Because guess what?

They're not open 18 hours a day, seven days a week. They don't have the, the University of Nebraska, football's ledger. Yeah. Come on. And we keep having these conversations because remember, the folks in Kansas peaking over, the folks in Iowa will peek over the bridge because they don't have sports radio the way we do. Hmm.

So, so, so where do they, huh? Maybe I need to go over there to the ticket. So that pool got a little more crap. Oh, yeah. And there's one diving board. That's all there is. There's a sliding board and then there's a diving board. Some folks are in the deep end trying to wait and just keep your head above water.

And some folks are in the shallow end, just standing there and going, I'm not trying to work that hard. Yeah. Hey. Jackson, how many diving boards are in the shallow end of the pool? Not one. Not one. Not one. Not one.

And this is, I, it's funny to me to explain to people that NIL is great for the people who want to work hard. The people who want to work hard. I tell people this, that if you wouldn't play for the University of Nebraska for free, you definitely shouldn't get paid by the University of Nebraska. If you wouldn't play basketball, if you wouldn't go to practice for free, you shouldn't get paid for. If you wouldn't do this for free, you shouldn't do it for pay. But then it's my responsibility to make sure that if you're willing to put in the work, that I'll make it worth your one.

That's why I've always paid interns. That's why I've always stayed extended, right? 18 hours for you. You know what? you have an additional seven nights a week that you can get your work and build your resume. Oh, yeah. That nobody else has provided.

And I know that about this program. And so when the young folks come in to Lincoln to be recruited and be seen, bravo for showing up. But now you got to go to work. You got to go to work. And you have to, you have to drill over the next.

you have to be the version of yourself while you're here that makes you irresistible amongst the 100 plus kids that are coming at what you offer you have to be better than

everybody else who shows up and you have to be better than the people who are already there you as a high school senior, junior, senior, you have to be better than the freshman from last year. Because otherwise, fingers crossed, cross your toes, and hope. Cory Barney came in as a freshman. I am.

And outworked everybody else to get to where he is. Dylan Raula came in and outworked everybody, people who had already existed. Again, the work had been done. So much so that one of those returners said, Hey, bro, it's yours. I'm going on over here to help you. I'm going to go do this other work. I'm going to go play tight-in because we're going to be,

we can be better if I'm over here. I want to be out here with you. And I think I deserve to be out here with you. So I'm going to put it into work. Yeah. The depth behind it for all the folks that are there and through all the NIL talk and all the transfer portal talk, the idea behind it for me is to tell people and just as a reminder,

fan, coach, athlete, or otherwise, because we've had folks walking the mill who are part of it, the group that's being recruited, and those are the conversations. Pretty amazing. Pretty amazing. They're all dreamers and whatnot,

opportunity to change your life. But man, if you didn't come here to work, if you came here to get money and talk money, nope, come in here to work. Yeah. Come in here to work.

pretty amazing pretty amazing watch so there's that we'll throw the break we'll close out one on a moment come back