In the middle of March 2022, I undertook a two week attachment with Dai Sport. Having already produced several pieces of work for the site already, Graham Thomas offered me the chance to work for the site on an attachment period as part of my placement module. This placement offered me the chance to make up the remainder of my 120 hours and enabled me to see how running a professional sports news outlet works. I believed that this placement would be very beneficial to me as I it would offer me the chance to produce more written pieces and offer me the chance to attend press conferences/sport fixtures.
I began my placement on the 14th March with a Microsoft Teams call meeting with Graham. Graham began by explaining how the placement would work and what I would be doing. We bang by looking at how the website works in terms of publishing work. He showed how work that has been sent to him could be uploaded onto the site. This was interesting as it showed how much editing and work Graham has to do to get the work up on the website. After an hour or two of showing me how the website works, Graham began to send me work to put on site. This was a good experience as I learnt how professional sites work and it was a beneficial experience for me proof-reading work, editing work and making sure they’re properly structured to go on site. I also learnt about copyright issues surrounding using photos online and this experience taught me how careful editors need to be when publishing work.
My second day of attachment with Dai Sport saw me travel to Jenner Park in Barry for a National Lottery event where blind football coach Chloe McBratney met her idol Karen Carney OBE. FAW Chief Executive Noel Mooney was also in attendance so Graham wanted me to go down and source some interviews. I met up with Tom Prosser who is on a kick back scheme with Dai Sport and we were in on interviews with Noel Mooney and Karen Carney. This was a hugely beneficial experience as we got to meet the most influential man in Welsh Football and an English football legend. I also got to see how experienced sports journalists such as Gareth Vincent and Phil Blanche operate and it was fascinating to see how they tried to squeeze answers out of Noel Mooney about Wales’ upcoming qualifying games. After that, myself and Tom interviewed Chloe McBratney about coaching a football side whilst blind and I also interviewed Barry Town United manager, Gavin Chesterfield. All in all, I learnt a lot on this day about how journalists can use PR days such as this to find interesting stories and talk to people they wouldn’t usually talk to.
Later that day I went on the Wales rugby press conference where head coach and captain, Wayne Pivac and Dan Biggar had been put up for interviews. From this I learnt what sort of questions are asked and learnt what the best techniques were to get better answers.
My third day of placement saw me attend Cardiff City vs Stoke City with Graham as a member of the press. This was a great experience for me as I was missing with journalists like Glenn Williams and Micheal Pearlman in the press room before hand which helps me to get my name out there and it’s a good opportunity to see how other journalists work. Graham was writing two match reports for two different news papers and asked me to do the player ratings. This was something I had never done before so it was another chance to broaden my horizons. After the game, we went to the press conference where I was tasked with writing a quotes piece for the DaiSport site. It was interesting attending a press conference and seeing how it works with the BBC going first, WalesOnline going next and then the questions being open to anyone. I took some advice from Graham about asking questions and it was very interesting to watch how he changed the subject at will to get the answers he wanted from Micheal O’Neil.
Thursday saw me write up my quotes piece from the following nights press conference. I had to find the best angle from the press conference and I decided on choosing Steve Morison talking about his sides next game which was against bitter rivals Swansea. I was given a deadline of 12pm the following morning as Graham told me that it would be pointless running the story if it went out any later than that as the other sites would have covered it. This emphasised to me how important it is for sports journalists to get their work done as soon as possible.
My next day with Dai Sport was Saturday 19th March where I went to Swansea City vs Birmingham City as a member of the press. As Graham wasn’t attending he put me in contact with Andrew Penman who was working for Westgate Sport so that I could shadow him. This was another good learning experience as I got to see how a freelance journalist operates and it was great for me to learn from him. As I had done previously, I did the player ratings and star man for the newspapers Andrew was writing for. Following the game, I attended both Russell Martin’s and Lee Bowyer’s press conferences and wrote a transcript for Andrew to use. I wrote the transcript in the press room immediately after the press conferences, and tried to ensure that I got it done quickly so Andrew could use it. I’d never done a transcript immediately after a press conference like that and it was a good learning curve seeing the demands professional sports journalists are put through. After getting home from the game on Saturday evening I immediately wrote my post match quotes piece and put it on the site ready to be posted first thing Sunday morning.
My next week saw me attending numerous press conferences and editing/posting work ready to go on the site. I attended Steve Morison’s press conference on the Monday before going to Wales football’s press conference with Neco Williams and Brennan Johnson. The final press conference I attended was the Bulls rugby team from South Africa. This is because Graham was writing a piece for S4c ahead of their upcoming game against the Dragons. Attending all three of these games gave me the chance to see how different journalists from different sports operate. The rest of my placement saw me continuing to edit work which made me a better journalist as I was able to learn from other people’s mistakes.
To summarise, my attachment period at DaiSport was very beneficial to me as a sports journalist. I learnt a lot of new things such as how to post work onto an official website, new interview techniques and got to see how professional sports journalists operate at matches and at press conferences. During this placement I think my writing improved as did my interview skills. I also got to shadow professional journalists who I learnt a lot from. I think this placement will stand me in great stead for the future.
AWC SPORT 