As the wait for sports continues, Los Angeles Dodgers reporter Alanna Rizzo is organizing and hosting a panel with Jaime Jarrín and several others in the industry to benefit her Guidry’s Guardian Foundation.
The event is scheduled for Wednesday at 6 p.m. PT and is open to students and aspiring journalists for a nominal $35 donation. Those wishing to participate are asked to reference “Panel For Pups” in the donation form.
While the panel is comprised of several media members who cover baseball, the group was assembled to provide general guidance and insight into the industry.
“I’ll serve as the moderator and kind of direct traffic, but people can certainly ask questions about sideline reporting, hosting or being on a baseball beat,” Rizzo told DodgerBlue.com. “I tried to get people that cover every sport, not just baseball.
Aspiring sports journalists, here’s a great opportunity to ask industry pros your questions! Join us for a virtual networking opportunity. Proceeds go to @GuidrysGuardian. Make your donation at https://t.co/cF0LU8HoCF. Reference “Panel For Pups” in the donation form. Thank you! pic.twitter.com/hR7RxNHVVb
— Guidry's Guardian Foundation (@GuidrysGuardian) May 21, 2020
“There’s people signing up that actually want to be political corespondents. It’s not necessarily just sports journalism. It’s really open for anybody interested in the world of journalism, to just be able to ask questions about the industry and to illustrate nobody has the exact same path. There’s all kinds of different ways to get into this business.”
The panel will be the second event Rizzo has hosted to benefit her Guidry’s Guardian Foundation, which was officially established last July 4. Like with a scorekeeping class held inside the Stadium Club at Dodger Stadium in January, Rizzo initially planned on the panel being an in-person event.
“It was supposed to be April 13 and we were solidifying a venue and some of the other services, such as catering and the same things we did for the scorekeeping class,” she said. “But April 13 obviously was no longer feasible when basically as of March 15, everything was getting shut down (because of the coronavirus pandemic).
“Originally it was going to be an in-person panel open to, hopefully, 200 people that were interested in getting some dedicated one-on-one time with industry professionals. I kept putting it off and thought that even though the world has stopped, the world of rescue never does. I wanted to continue to find ways to fundraise.
“I get a question pretty much on a weekly, if not daily basis, from young people wanting to know how to get into the industry. I thought this would be a good forum for all those types of questions, for them to be able to ask people in a variety of aspects of sports journalism.”
Rizzo is hopeful participants will take advantage of having access to the likes of Jamie Maggio and Alden Gonzalez, among others, but she’s also mindful of those who may be timid.
“I hope they use this as an opportunity to get their questions answered from people in the industry. If you take Jaime Jarrín alone, that’s over six decades of experience in this industry, being the Spanish voice of the Los Angeles Dodgers and what it takes to be a play-by-play guy,” Rizzo said.
“And you have his son Jorge who not only gets to work with him, but has also had decades of experience as well. Plus you have sideline reporters, color analysts, L.A. Times editor, columnists.
“There’s a bunch of different types of people from the industry, that I hope the participants really pick their brains. It’s rare you’re going to have this type of panel at your disposal to be able to ask whatever sort of industry questions you have from the comfort of your own home.
“I’m going to have them submit questions ahead of time to make sure I cover all the bases. Depending on the amount of participants, they can either communicate via the chat or if they say they have a question, we can certainly accommodate that. I think the forum will be small enough for people to really get some one-on-one time and have questions answered.
“Some people don’t feel comfortable doing it in front of the panel, so that’s why I’m opening it up also to submit questions ahead of time that way I can ask on their behalf.”
As Rizzo remains eager for the 2020 MLB season to begin, time away from the field has allowed her to focus on Guidry’s Guardian Foundation, which like other businesses and some other nonprofit organizations, has been impacted by the ongoing pandemic.
“It’s been tough. There’s so many good causes out there and people really are scaling back in terms of donations,” Rizzo said. “Either because of their own fears of perhaps not having income their accustomed to or not knowing what their income is going to be on a week-to-week basis, or having other causes they feel they need to support.
“The medical costs are definitely still there, because the need hasn’t diminished, but the donations are definitely down. Understandably so. I’m just trying to come up with ideas to generate some funding.”
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