“For me the key word in all this is “connecting.” Reaching out to people is obviously the hallmark of great beat reporting. But if we don’t provide a forum for our sources and readers to connect to each other, we’re missing a valuable opportunity.”

The Beat: The business of college sports, nationwide.

The Reporter: Brad Wolverton, staff reporter for the Chronicle of Higher Education

Description: Scott Smallwood, new media editor writes….

We’d like to participate in your social networking beat reporting
project. Our idea is to have Brad Wolverton, the senior editor of our
Athletics section and also our principle Athletics reporter, create a
network around his new beat of the business of college sports.

After covering athletics for several years, Brad has been looking
for ways to delve deeper into the subject and to get more diverse
voices into our coverage. College sports obviously gets plenty of
attention in the media, but our hope is to focus more on the money:
where’s it’s coming from and where it’s going to.

We’re still developing our plan for how this social network would
work on the site and how we would make use of the network in any
editorial content. We’ll be creating a new blog for Brad’s beat that
will be the home for the project, but we’re also very interested in
using other Web-based tools to create this network and give its members
a way to communicate to each other and our audience.

The Chronicle of Higher Education Team: (1. Jeff Selingo, editor
(2. Scott Smallwood, new media editor
(3. Brad Wolverton, reporter

More: Brad Wolverton writes….

In covering the beat the past few years I’ve developed
plenty of trusted sources, but I’ve been thinking a lot lately about
how to use the web to build more of a community around my coverage.

My goal is to create an online social network where a few dozen
experts can begin connecting regularly on the key issues of the day. I
want this to be a place where they share ideas and learn from each
other as much as inform my coverage.

We’re also going to create a blog focused on the issues and money
behind the games, a place where all our readers will be able to turn to
delve into what’s happening off the field.

My hope is that many of the ideas from the social network will
gravitate to the blog, where the experts will play a leading role in
shaping the conversations taking place there.

For me the key word in all this is “connecting.” Reaching out to
people is obviously the hallmark of great beat reporting. But if we
don’t provide a forum for our sources and readers to connect to each
other, we’re missing a valuable opportunity.

Kudos to you for the outstanding idea, and I look forward to working with you on this project.