The Arizona Republic's Tom Blodgett presented on the topic of sports journalism today at the Reynolds Institute. He briefly mentioned ethics in sports journalism. As the adviser of the newspaper as well as a coach at my school sometimes it's difficult to know if I'm shamelessly promoting my sports or encouraging my students to be good journalists. I tend to encourage coverage of topics and sports in which I'm most invested. How do you avoid doing this?
Also, I know with many high school sports, student managers keep stats for the team. A coach usually does not have time to do all of this during a game/meet/match. I have found that although these stats often require verification, team managers can make great resources for student journalists. If nothing else, they usually can explain how scoring works...usually.
Ashley Barnes
Bel Air High School
Bel Air, Md.
Posts
Year 1- Shameless promotion
ReplyDeleteYear 2- ?
Last year, a football player/staffer had the only decent camera so he took mostly pictures of the team and his buddies. Things got better midyear when we got some cameras and I could provide some diversity. I am going to use Kye's idea of keeping a photo and name log when students are listed so we balance our coverage a bit better. I don't apologize for our over the top coverage this year. You have to work with the kids who sign up for your class and build the program as you go.
That's a good questin, Ashley. Sure, I can get pretty excited about the sport that is just about to clinch the league title and move on to the state level, but what about the others that are in "a building year"?
ReplyDeleteNumber one, I insist on one article about every sport, both boys and girls, and varsity and junior varsity. At the beginning of each season, each sports reporter chooses a beat or beats for which he or she is responsible for the rest of the season. These beat reporters must submit a story for each sport they have obligated themselves to.
They don't all get printed. Some turn out to be non-stories. Some get dropped by the reporter (who suffers a severe penalty), and some end up getting combined with another story (the end of the regular season story gets combined with the league championship story).
Second, I attend at least one game of each sport, each gender, each level, each season. For many of the sports, I am the most reliable fan in the stands. If you go to a few games, meets, matches, you become more familiar and therefore more connected. This could also inspire you to boost coverage of those minority sports.
Last, I think it goes back to what Michael Roberts and everyone else has been telling us. Roberts said, "A story falls apart if the idea is poorly conceived."
Getting students and yourslef motivated to cover sports stories means getting them to find the real story. The real story, if it's good enough, should get everyone excited.
So, you're bored by tennis? Try to motivate your students to dig up the story about the tennis player whose father was a champion when he went to the school 20 years before. Or, what about the coach who once played Venus Williams? Maybe the player who has the latest and greatest tennis racquet made of adamantium and laser strings?
I spend several class days just on the brainstorming process, and by the time we've talked everything out, we usually have a pretty good bank of good stories to choose from.
Also, keep your eyes and ears open and encourage your students to do the same. Our last front page story this year arose when I overheard a parent talking about her volleyball son who was waiting for an acceptance letter from the Air Force Academy, and we have run much more than that from story ideas suggessted by students with radar ears.
Kye Haina
Kamehameha Schools Maui
Pukalani, Hawai'i