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.
Throughout my placement I got to learn how sports journalism continues to operate following the pandemic. My time with WalesOnline was balanced between working from home and going into the office.
During my time on placement I experienced what a normal week looks like for a sports journalist. I learnt how sports journalists have had to use Zoom for press conferences and how the industry has changed as a result of the pandemic.
I learnt how news gathering for a professional sports journalist works and how stories are put together in the news room. I got to experience this first hand when I got the chance to put a story together myself for it to be published on the site.
I also came to understand how important social media, particularly Twitter is for sports journalists as we regularly scrolled through Twitter on the hunt for potential stories. During this placement I received regular feedback regarding my work and I believe that this placement was very beneficial for me.
To summarise, during this placement I learnt a lot about how the industry has changed during the pandemic and learnt how important social media is for a modern day sports journalist.
AWC SPORT 