At the end of November I undertook a week long placement with WalesOnline working on the sports desk. I arranged the placement by emailing Jon Doel who is head of sport at WalesOnline before arranging dates for me to come in and undertake a placement. I was keen to experience a placement with WalesOnline as it was a good way to get 40 hours of placement in and experience what a week as a sports journalists looks like. It was also a good way to get my name out there with some bylines and finally when I graduate and go into the world of work I would like to work for an organisation like WalesOnline as a rugby/football correspondent so it was a perfect opportunity to see how things operate.
The placement was balanced between online and in person, as per WalesOnline protocol at the time. Going in to the office enabled me to understand how the office environment worked and enabled me to meet some of the other sports journalists who’s work I’ve been reading for years like Simon Thomas. This was a good experience and showed me that if I worked hard then I could be sitting there in a few years time. Working from home was a little bit more difficult as I was set stricter deadlines and just a little bit more inconvenient as unlike being in an office environment I couldn’t ask questions and receive an immediate answer. However, many organisations are still operating like this in the wake of the pandemic and the lockdowns so it was useful experience as it showed what it was like to work from home as a sports journalist.
I worked from home on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday whilst I was in the office on Tuesday and Friday. When working from home I was sent work via email to complete and then given a deadline, an example of similar previous pieces and a brief of how many words I should look to include. The pieces I was assigned were reasonably basic and just consisted of rehashing stories that had previously gone out or stories similar to what other outlets had run. This was a nice way of easing myself in and gave me the opportunity to get some bylines on Wales’ national news site.
As Wales had just finished their autumn campaign the previous weekend there was plenty of rugby news to write about and I began by writing about where Wales found themselves in the World Rugby rankings. This was an easy piece to write as I was sent a piece that was written the previous weekend about the rankings so I had a structure to follow and I just had to change some some little bits to it. That afternoon, I wrote a piece about how Wales’ squad was looking following the autumn campaign and what players were injured and likely to miss the Six Nations. Again, I was sent a piece that had been done before the autumn campaign so I had a structure to follow, I just had to include players that had injured themselves in the autumn. This involved me doing my own research to find out who was injured and then subsequently find out how long they were injured for to determine whether they were likely to miss the Six Nations campaign. That was the end of my first day on placement and showed how working remotely works with WalesOnline.
My second day on placement saw myself go into the WalesOnline offices for the first time. This was a nerve-racking experience at first but I was treated like a full time member of staff and had to dress wearing a shirt and smart trousers whilst in the offices. Again, this was important as the placement not only helped me to improve as a journalist but enabled me to experience what the office etiquette is and showed me what level of professionalism is required. My first piece of work in the office was a piece on how the betting odds were looking for Wales’ Six Nations chances. Jon sent me a piece that had been done the previous year which acted as a template for my piece. I just had to conduct my own research by looking at the betting sites and then use that information. I also had a go at writing my own piece, I wrote a review of Wales Women’s autumn campaign and looked ahead to their upcoming Six Nations campaign and World Cup. I conducted my own research and tried to make it informative as possible. However, it wasn’t published which suggests that it either wasn’t good enough or wasn’t relevant enough. In hindsight, I’d agree that it wasn’t relevant enough as it was neither a review, preview or story. This showed that my story gathering probably needs to improve if I’m to come up with stories good enough for WalesOnline. I also appreciate that WalesOnline is very viewer and click orientated and that my story wouldn’t demand the readership that most WalesOnline stories would.
On the Wednesday I was back to working from home, I was given two pieces to write throughout the day. The first of these was a piece about Wales Six Nations fixtures where I had looked ahead to Wales Six Nations campaign and wrote about each fixture, the kick off time, the TV channel and a little bit of background about the fixture. Again I was sent a template of how to write the piece and I just had to research the fixtures for myself. In the afternoon I was assigned another piece of work which was to write about every URC, Gallagher Premiership and Allianz Women’s Premier 15’s game taking place on the upcoming weekend and talk about the kick off time, TV channel and write a few lines about the game as a mini-preview. This piece needed a lot of research and was quite time consuming but was an enjoyable piece to put together.
Thursday saw my last day working at home and was one of my busiest days. I began by rehashing a piece written about Gareth Bale by one of the nationals before attending the Dragons press conference via zoom. I was told I was to write a piece from the press conference and take the best angle. Head coach Dean Ryan was up first where he announced a new contract for Taine Basham before Basham himself was up. I wrote a piece about Basham’s new deal and included quotes from both Ryan and Basham taking the angle of how much he’d improved. This was probably my best piece and featured in the newspaper the following day. Finally, I was told to listen to a podcast with former Cardiff defender Ben Turner and then write a transcript. I had never written a transcript before so this was something new and from the transcript I then wrote a piece around it.
My final day in the office saw me write a preview for the Barbarians vs Samoa game, a preview to the FIFA world cup draw and finally I wrote a piece from one of my own ideas which was published. The piece was a preview piece to the Welsh Premiership Cup and I was pleased that one of my own ideas was published on the site.
From my week long placement at WalesOnline I learnt a lot of things. I learnt the importance of making stories enticing for viewers, I learnt how to write a transcript and I got to experience a newsroom for the first time. By mixing with other professional sports journalists I learnt a lot about the industry and I think this placement will stand me in good stead for the future.
AWC SPORT 