I first made contact with Chris Kirwan of the South Wales Argus by email.
I was polite and showed awareness that someone in a full time journalism job wouldn’t necessarily have a lot of time.
He was open to the idea of a placement and gave me free reign to propose my own ideas.
In my first placement at the South Wales Argus, I learnt he basics of how to communicate and respond to the demands of the publication I am writing for.
I was given a set brief for my work on the weekend rugby round-ups, which included a word limit, a deadline and set criteria for the content.
Although it wasn’t very common I did try to offer ideas for different types of content such as a preview for the Welsh National, which I executed poorly and also timed it poorly as my placement providers weren’t available across Christmas.
I have more recently submitted a piece about Welsh National winning trainer Sam Thomas, which took a lot of planning and was a story I sourced myself.
It is uncertain whether it will be posted or not and it is too close to my module deadline to have been posted yet, but it has been sent off to editors as it probably needs to be cut down.
I have not only learnt the importance of following a brief, but have also been given the freedom to source my own content.
The ideas I came up with were either not executed well or struggled to meet a deadline and this is something I will take into consideration for my other placement roles.
Placement Post 2
FOR this placement I contacted Jon Waldron via Twitter regarding a different deadline, when I had to interview someone for a law and ethics presentation.
Thankfully when I asked if he had any work placement opportunities he was approved by his bosses to take me on.
This helped me understand how important a past working relationship is, even if it was for something relatively small or for a small amount of time.
It was also an effective way of using my social media accounts to establish new contacts and I am grateful for anyone who responds when I am in need online.
My time at the Colchester Gazette has yielded the most work in terms of published work.
Here I was able to follow a different brief every day, with most of the content revolving around EFL League Two.
However, the subject of the pieces could be about Colchester United, the league itself, the best players in the league or managers.
It is also the placement I was able to put most of my own ideas into motion and then led to them being published.
This is mainly because my ideas, such as the piece about Colchester United manager Wayne Brown, fit the market that the publication was trying to fill.
It was relevant to the topics previously covered by the paper, which meant it had somewhere to fit.
There was a week gap in between some of my work however, due to juggling other deadlines which I could probably have managed better.
In future I would try to complete more work in better time so that when it came to producing more content in the future there would be less clashes.
This placement also offered regular contact on Twitter, as well as email, and offered a more connected way of working with my employer.
This probably helped me to produce a range of different content because I had a better understanding of what my employer wanted.
My previous placement was excellent because it got me used to working to a brief, so for The Daily Gazette Standard, the process felt very easy because of what I had already done.
Placement Post 3
MY work for YYFM has mainly been interview based and, although I am unable to find the published content yet, again with some being submitted shortly before deadline, I have produced three interviews so far for them.
I achieved the placement through my dissertation officer, Steve Johnson, who had contacts outside the university with the Ysbyty Astrad radio channel.
This placement has been great for networking, having been lucky enough to meet world champion boxing trainer Tony Borg through this placement.
Due to the nature of this placement I have done a lot of travelling to Newport and to different parts of Cardiff.
It has given me experience in planning and preparing meetings, with my interview with former cricket player Paul Crump helping me understand how to build rapport with an interviewee.
The interview almost felt secondary and it just felt like a friendly chat, which I think benefitted the content massively and helped with my future interviews, such as with Sam Thomas.
Paul was also more than happy to have a chat in the future, so it also improved the way I make contacts.
I now understand you can make a lasting impression even if you are focused on work, because the enjoyment we both got from the interview didn’t feel so much like work.
It also gave me great experience in staying calm and looking at the conditions of an interview and making adjustments before filming, to minimise background noise and ask the correct questions.
For my second interview with Tony Borg I had a set brief, to question him about how boxing has changed since he was boxing.
The interview meant I had to plan my questions carefully, thinking about time and making sure my questions covered the subject broadly.
I also had to take into consideration my recording equipment when I was given new content to cover.
I had to consider the use of a tripod or a microphone for the quality of content or whether not to use such equipment for added mobility or lack of room etc.
Placement Post 4
Having finished three placements I took on last year, the last post is dedicated to a placement I first started last year with Bowls Wales.
Although I only completed 10 hours for them this year, it was almost a continuation of last year’s work, where I created a video to promote the safety of bowls during a pandemic.
This is another example of a strong working relationship I have built through placements, this time with Claire from Bowls Wales who provided a crucial placement for me last year.
It is also the only form of content I produced during placement this year that will be published in video format.
It also presented a unique challenge, in that someone else had filmed the content and sent it to me, with my role solely editing.
I had to try and analyse what to take out and how to put the piece together, watching each interview in its entirety and planning ahead for the video before sending it off.
Due to me completing a similar task last year, this was relatively easier than that first experience which perhaps was a lesson in familiarity.
The more I familiarise myself with different types of content it will only benefit me because I will have a similar feeling with more types of content.
It will hopefully make me a more versatile journalist and it is the reason I have ended up with a mixture of different placements, despite the majority of my content being in my favoured medium of writing.
Overall the placement process has benefitted me massively because, although I had work experience before university, it helped teach me what I have to do to achieve my preferred career path in sports journalism.
Towards the end of the course I have finally made contacts in the sports I would like to cover in future.
Although I understand I have to work hard covering anything I can in the meantime, I hope these contacts will help me get a job covering those sports further down the line.
Hawkinsport 