Name: Steve Busfield
Position: ESPN FC and ESPN.co.uk Managing Editor
Where I'm from: Bradford, Yorkshire, England
Where I call home: London
Focusing on right now: Learning the ESPN way after 17 years with The Guardian.
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When Busfield isn't busy covering a World Cup, he
enjoys playing a little soccer himself |
Best advice: Learn your trade properly. It's never been easier to be published, but it's never been harder to get paid for it. So many youngsters think that journalism is just about writing opinions and haven't learned how to talk to people, make contacts, craft a story, write in a variety of formats. And the number of them who are willing to do it for free amazes me. If they give their work away for free now, who is ever going to pay them?
A must for a new hire: Someone who stands out from the crowd, with a memorable idea or attitude. I remember during one interview I was sketching some ideas and the interviewee leaned over and almost snatched the pen out of my hand to take over. She got the job, and she was very good at it.
Exec I most admire: The Guardian Deputy Editor PAUL JOHNSON. He has an incomparable understanding of news. So much about doing news well is about trusting your intuition, and then thinking about the ways to move on from there. Paul has that in spades.
Best book I've read this year: "The Last King of England," by JULIAN RATHBONE. I studied history at Oxford but it was Rathbone who really brought the story of KING HAROLD and KING WILLIAM alive and helped me understand the concept that history is written by the winners.
First thing in the morning: Wondering how so many e-mails could arrive in my inbox while I was asleep. Being based in London with a team that spans the globe and my boss, ESPN.com Int'l Exec Editor KEVIN JACKSON, being based in Seattle would explain that, I guess.
Talking tech: Twitter and Facebook are bunched together so often -- not least on every website's news page -- but they are very different technological beasts. Twitter has its uses, but I think it is overrated. It gets big theoretical numbers but less actual click-throughs. Facebook, meanwhile, is relatively underrated as a method of reaching large numbers of readers.
Must-have music: The Boss, BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, and BILLY BRAGG. The true heirs to WOODY GUTHRIE. One of my bosses, ESPN VP & Editorial Dir PATRICK STIEGMAN, has seen The Boss far more times than I have, but I've seen The Bard of Barking more than almost anyone.
Food for thought: If you're going to eat fish and chips, it must me made the Yorkshire way, with beef dripping for the batter. Fish battered in any other manner is simply inferior.
How I unwind: I've been playing soccer with the same 11-a-side team for more than a quarter of a century. Two weeks ago, I got a black eye from a head-on collision. Some asked whether I should have given up doing that sort of thing to my body now I’m not a youngster any more. I intend to keep on doing it until I really can't. Not least because everyone needs a release -- a good excuse to run and shout and get the stress out of the system.
Day in the life: At the moment, ESPN FC is coming off its biggest ever figures with the World Cup -- so the challenge is to build on that momentum and keep the audience engaged and growing across the world. We are working on a number of very exciting things with ESPN.co.uk, which will be coming to fruition in the next few months. It is a very dynamic environment to step into.
