An EIU professor, faced with the daunting task of teaching students how to write leads for game stories, was stymied when his class defeated him in all four assignment submissions Monday night in Charleston.
Continue reading “Students sweep past j-prof, but he remains optimistic about their future”Tag: sports journalism
Here’s some quick golf coverage exercises
Fewer sports are being played here in central Illinois and around the country, but outdoor activities that enable students to be more socially distant during competition, such as golf, tennis and cross country, have been allowed in Illinois.
That means more coverage of these three prep sports than usual.
Coaches send me screen shots of school matches for our local sports news website where I post short stories, which, of course, are longer for big events or for those that we cover in person.
As a primer for teaching golf coverage, though, these two shorter exercises work well.
It’s going to be a challenge teaching sports writing, but here’s how I’ll start
It’s going to be a different, and likely more difficult, semester for many who are teaching sports writing courses across the country. Few, if any, sports might be available in some states – and even where they will be competing, interviewing athletes and coaches will be more challenging. Nobody yet has many answers, but we’re all trying. To that end, I have shared syllabi for several courses below – Writing for Sports Media, Advanced Reporting and News Writing. Would love to see yours, as well.
Sports journalism exercises & handouts for a coronavirus half-semester
I’ve assembled a list of sports writing exercises and handouts for those needing additional material as we all move to teaching online for the next several months. Feel free to use, share, adapt – whatever works to help you educate students. If you would like to share your own exercises, please send them along. I will post your instructions, your name and your college/media for full credit. I’m hoping this can serve as an archive for sports media education.
23 tips for delivering better live-sports game content
Writing stories about games on deadlines is not always easy, especially at the high school level where one is not delivered play-by-play, comprehensive stats, multiple quotes and players/ coaches to interview. Skills learned by covering prep sports enable one to more skillfully and artfully get more out of college and professional event coverage. After reviewing my students’ stories the past several weeks, I put together some reminders about game coverage at all levels.
Back to basics: teaching, learning to write sports game stories
Let’s not forget the basics.
Even if they seem obvious, we sometimes forget to apply them when covering sports events. Of course, this happens far more to newer writers, and students, who have barely been introduced to them.
Here are a few reminders I plan to offer my students this week after having reviewed their stories on college and high school basketball gamers.
In no particular order:
- Insert the score of a game (and do so early). The score does not have to be in the lead, but it should definitely be in first few graphs. Take a photo of the scoreboard or from the scorebook before you start postgame interviews.
Here are a few examples:
Continue reading “Back to basics: teaching, learning to write sports game stories”
Perhaps this journalism model can help change local sports coverage, even if we’re just trying to fill a need
I started a sports website nearly four months ago here in central Illinois.
I did not have a point to prove.
Nor a thesis to test.
Or even some lofty premise to uphold.
Although I do have pent-up anger at newspaper chains for having gobbled newspapers like a private equity firm – essentially dissembling them by eviscerating staffs, reducing coverage and pretty much divesting from local communities. As a result, you can buy a cadaverously thin local newspaper edition filled with mostly non-local news for two bucks. The newspaper still has some very good journalists, but not nearly as many as they need and with not nearly as much support as they require.
Writing about live sports events
From time to time, I’ll offer observations from my own sports (and sometimes news writing) classes.
Assignment: Students wrote stories based upon the football exercise in the second edition of the Field Guide To Covering Sports (pp. 365-367).
Observations: Students developed leads that were general, which is often the case since they are often taught to take this approach in essays by most teachers from K-12. As a result, my students focused on leads about “regulation ending in a scoreless tie” or merely that Cocoa defeated Tallahassee Godby, 7-6, in a state title game.
Here are several ways to improve sports coverage at college media
This is the most important time of the year for college sports media: when editors and producers need to plan coverage for the next three to – ideally – six months.
Too often, editors and producers rely way, way (way!) too much on game precedes and folos, which is both lazy and unimaginative. To compound problems, college newspapers and TV stations lean on, respectively, print/digital game stories and brief descriptions of game highlights for its primary coverage. To be fair, professional newspapers and TV stations frequently fumble through game coverage as well even though this is the lowest form of sports reportage.
Continue reading “Here are several ways to improve sports coverage at college media”Some March Madness cliches are more wretched than others
I used to rail vs clichés like “Cinderella” and “bubble teams.” Those words, though, have been used so pervasively in discussions about the NCAA Basketball Tournament that they are now as endemic to coverage as March Madness. That’s what makes English perhaps the best language on the planet; words are blended and redefined, in part, through popular usage and changes in society. (God help us, though, if charity stripe eventually makes the cut.)
Sports language has been a big part of our vernacular for more than a century. Baseball, in particular, has a strong hold on how we describe our lives. We go to bat for others, strike out when we fail, and hit a home run when we succeed. Sometimes, though, we throw a Hail Mary pass in a desperate attempt to do well. At other times, a decision or action is a slam dunk.
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