Is Writing For Bleacher Report Unethical For Paid Sports Journalists?

I've recently hit a small crossroads in life that directly involves my contributions here on Bleacher Report.

In a matter of about 10 months, I will be out of school and searching for a coveted job, whether it be in sports or another aspect of news writing. But the newspaper industry is dying right before our eyes. This raises the question: is it right for me and other soon-to-be professional journalists to give the news and opinions away for free?

The Internet is cruel mistress to the print form of journalism. Let's face it, it is the future of this industry. It's faster, more efficient, more diverse, and in some cases easier to access, unless you like to read the newspaper on the subway.

Although a site like Bleacher Report allows me to write whatever I want, when I want, it is still very easy to gain access to press conferences, practices, and coaches. This allows the unpaid writers on this site to give you the same information and stories that the professional, paid writers can give you.

Though many professional sites, like our partner Fox Sports, view us a "community," the quality of writing seen on this site, for the most part, is just as good as what they produce. Not saying everyone's articles and stories would make a major newspaper's sports section, but a good amount would give an editor a headache deciding.

One problem newspapers have is space consideration. More space equals spending more money. More money spent means the more Chicago Tribune owner Sam Zell may try to sell (other than the Cubs and the historic Tribune Tower). Before you know it, he'll try to sell his own writers.

On the other hand, the Internet allows endless space. Therefore, someone can write all their little heart desires and the Internet will not say, "We cut your story for space," or "We held your story until Wednesday because we didn't have enough room."

All of this dawned on me as my return to the Northern Star at Northern Illinois University nears. If I wanted to, I could go to the football games, get quotes from coach Jerry Kill's post-game news conferences, and write the NIU Huskies' football stories for this site and be able to go more in depth than the Star would allow.

Would this violate my journalism ethics though?

The Star is a free newspaper, but it still costs money to print. They are currently tight on budget, and quite frankly, getting paid per inch doesn't pay much there.

So I'm already giving the news for free, but at least there I'm getting paid for it. So technically they aren't giving it away, I guess.

But as newspapers continue to struggle and cut jobs, I can't help but feel like I'm contributing to its fall, Like I have helped harden the cement shoes.

Bleacher Report has been good to me, but it's not my job. If I land a sports writing gig with say, the Chicago Sun-Times right out of school, I will probably have to stop doing this, as not to put my job in jeopardy. It'll be a choice made solely on my ethics.

A choice I have been leaning towards all summer, as the words "writer" and "newspaper" fail to come up on Career Builder once again.

I'm not knocking Bleacher Report for its contribution to the sports writing world. I'm just saying that I'm beginning to feel like a scab producing all these stories for a non-paying outlet while looking for a job within a paying outlet.

I have finally reached a point of conflict in my career. For the first time in my seven years of news and sports writing, my ethics come in play and leave me contemplating what is the right and ethical decision to make concerning my future in writing.

Is it no big deal to give these stories for free? Or as a journalist, is it unethical for me to do for free, what myself and other writers have gotten paid for in the past and in the future?