Experience is everything to CBS Sports associate news producer Marcus Krum.
The experience of following the 2016 Class 6A state champion Coppell soccer boys team to their winning match; the experience of walking into an unfinished CHS Arena with a hard hat on and GoPro camera in hand. It is these moments that made former 2016-17 Sidekick executive sports editor a journalist.
“I think you learn so much more from the experience and from actually doing the job, than you could learn sitting in a classroom,” Krum said.
In early high school, Krum believed he would go into broadcast journalism. However, after taking an introduction to journalism class with Sidekick adviser Chase Wofford in 2013, Krum decided to join the newspaper instead.
“I just remember spending so many evenings covering games from all different sports, spending mornings and class periods interviewing coaches and players – I loved all of that and I loved being a part of the Coppell sports community in my own way,” Krum said. “I also loved getting to experience what it was like doing real, actual journalistic work at such a young age. It was a really valuable experience and it set me up.”
Krum majored in journalism at the University of Texas at Austin. During his time there, he served in multiple leadership roles for The Daily Texan, including sports editor and associate managing editor. His mindset when reporting was not to merely summarize an event, but to tell the story of the unique experiences in it.
“Anybody now can go on social media, MaxPreps or wherever to find the box score of a game and what happened; they can go on Twitter and find highlights,” Krum said. “Your job as a reporter is finding something different that you got because you were at the game and so you can tell the story of the game more wholly than the box score or the stats scan.”
Krum used to work as an associate digital producer for Sports Illustrated, and now works as an associate news producer with CBS Sports’s Golazo Network in New York. As an editorial guide for the show, he collects information on the teams playing and ensures that the producers have the best talking points.
Even at his position working at large news organizations, Krum sees the value of student journalism.
“It’s real journalism, even The Sidekick, Daily Texan; we were putting together real stuff,” Krum said. “You are also in the environment around people who are getting paid to do it. You get a taste of how they do their job as well, and you get to meet some of them and pick their brains. At the end of the day, it’s being there that’s important.”
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