Sports Journalism Course

One of my first news writing classes in college, our teacher told us to go out and cover an event -- but NOT a sporting event. At the time I figured it was because it was too easy. Now, after 12 years in the business, I realize she was being ignorant. Nothing you could be expected to do in college will prepare you more for deadline writing than turning around a game story for the next day.

 

Seems like some people expect these kids to turn this class into a 20-hour a week job. Yes, the course should be tough and show them sports writing is more than covering games. And it should be made clear to them that there will be some required out-of-class assignments. But I'm not quite far enough removed from college to forget the workload.
This isn't the only course these kids are taking that semester. A lot of them probably have jobs, too, and others might be taking night classes or working for the college paper. They're not working a beat full-time, they're learning the ropes. Don't expect them to be at every practice and every game at this point of their education.

Make them cover a few events during the semester, and give them options. Break it up. Have them focus on game coverage for a few weeks to get the feel of how things operate and to get comfortable. Then shift to covering practices for a few weeks as you focus on developing news and features "behind the scenes." Finally, focus on the FOI and database stuff at either the beginning or end of the course.
Then have them put it all together. Put the screws to them for a final project where they have to cover an event (a basketball or football game in the fall semester, maybe a weekend baseball series in the spring) from start to finish. Have them turn in an advance and a feature beforehand, then a gamer, sidebar, notebook and follow-up afterward. If they turn in a breaking news story, give them extra credit.

 

I did take a sports writing class in college, btw. We did one or two gamers off TV and we also had to go out and cover 2-3 live games.

We also got a zero on any assignment that had a factual error or a misspelled name.

Zero.

 

I'm taking over the high school journalism program at my school this year. My staff will hate me, but every misspelled name or factual error will merit a two-letter-grade deduction in one's grade for the unit.

A zero is a bit harsh for beginning high school students, but anyone concerned about his/her GPA and class rank will feel the sting of a 20% deduction really quickly.

 

Specific to the way Missouri structures the Journalism program - which was the original point of this thread - treating the class as a 20-hour a week job is EXACTLY what these students will be expected to do. It's always been that way. The kids enrolling in this hypothetical sports journalism program will still be contributing to the Missourian (in whatever format still remains by the time the program gets off the ground), DigMo, and KOMU. They just won't be doing so as part of the more generic Print/Broadcast/Photo/Convergence sequences.

 

How does Missouri do it? Are all journalism students basically on staff (in some capacity) at the Missourian?

 

All students in the upper-level reporting/producing/photography classes are essentially staff reporters for KOMU, KBIA (assuming it still exists, Greg could confirm) and the Missourian. There is a classroom component, but you are required to do at least one staff reporting shift a week at the relevant media outlet. Specific to the broadcast sequence, we learned to shoot, edit and write scripts in the intro and mid-level classes, and then did our time at the station. Weekend editions were entirely student-run, and were paid positions.

 

Thanks for the help.

Here is how things work now at Missouri. Students in several of the J-School’s sequences do time at the Columbia Missourian, a web site and five-day a week morning paper.
It is a class, different from their other journalism classes, but still a class which includes a lecture twice a week. At the Missourian, they cover everything from high school sports to Missouri football and basketball. Some choose to return for a second semester of advanced reporting.
The paper is managed by professional editors and is run like industry newspapers, so students do have the opportunity to get their hands dirty in a real-world situation. At the Missourian, we’ve had “mini” seminars on everything from how to score a baseball game to how to tie a necktie.
KOMU (television), KBIA (radio) and Vox (magazine) are run in a similar way.
The sports journalism course I’m proposing would supplement those experiences and provide students with even more building blocks if they decide, under the new curriculum, to focus on sports journalism in their undergraduate studies.
Some ideas: One thing we don’t well enough is to provide examples of good sports writing and talk about why each succeeds. Every band, after all, starts out as a cover band.
Obviously, the business of sports is huge – a point hammered home by the recent conference re-alignments and gigantic television contracts. Sometimes, it can seem like another language. Some business reporting background?
Crime and law reporting plays a larger role too. Should a sports reporter know his way around the courthouse, police station?
We also don’t do enough to foster critical thinking.
The idea of asking coaches/SID’s to visit and be interviewed by the class is a good one.
The suggestion of taking students to an event and teaching them, in person, how to look at it – is also interesting. Too many of them don’t have the confidence to challenge a coach’s answer or an SID’s release. Or even to trust their own instincts about what is interesting.

 

Greg: I'm a little late to the party, but I'd like to see something that turns out more well-rounded journalists. At many of their first papers ... the smaller dailies and often weeklies ... they'll be expected to do it all: Write, take photos, and lay out pages. I know there are photojournalism classes, and it's been a long time since I graduated. Are there elective courses in layout these days? We didn't have them in my day, but that was in the early 90s, in the infancy of pagination. That would be helpful, speaking as a hiring SE.

I especially like the idea of making sports reporters learn their way around the courthouse/legal documents, although I suspect the basic intro to news reporting course will cover much of that.