Evaluation of Self Initiated Project

                                                            Evaluation

Exploring a Professional in the Industry

As part of developing a range of contacts and knowledge, I set out to explore a part of the industry from the viewpoint of a current local professional. I outlined BBC Humberside’s Matt Dean as a potential client as I have met him on previous occasions, and he was very helpful.

I made contact to establish my goals and ask about the possibility of gaining an interview with him and to sit in on a radio show live.

For a long time after I had made first contact I did not hear anything, as I am aware of the nature of Matt’s work, I started to identify new targets that I could carry this project out on.

Eventually, I got the reply from matt as he asked me for a set of dates that I could do, of which I obliged and we set up the date.

Sitting in on the radio show live was something I had experienced before and enjoyed, but as this was my second time, I felt a bit more involved, and I could relax more as I was conducting the interview after the show.

Being able to watch professionals at work, however small or for whatever time limit, I s a useful and good experience to have, as I enables me to be able to watch, learn and ask questions, whilst also gaining more establishment with the contact.

For the interview itself, I had prepared a set of questions as I had a particular direction of answers that I wanted to gain, but I also did this to ensure conversation did not become stuck. My aim was to coax as much information regarding my questions, and then tailor the next question to his answer if this was possible.

I set this task as a recorded podcast, as I wanted to explore doing this, as I have not done so before. The idea being that I could place this on my blog to listen to, but also to write up an interview, and also transcribe the interview.

The process of the interview itself went very well. Matt responded with a lot of answers to my questions, elaborated on many aspects, and gave me incitation into his thoughts on his current role, and the media industry’s evolution in aspects of new media technology.

Overall the interview experience was a great one, as it enabled me to gain a professional’s opinion, and also it gave me lots of content of which I could do many things with journalistically.

Analysis of Sports Clubs work

For my Self-Initiated Project I undertook a range of journalism based work to explore. My aim was to document these in relation to Sports Journalism, and to build a portfolio of many different styles and areas.

For much of the experiences, I have not had past knowledge or experience in partaking in the types of journalism that I would be conducting, nor have I had much experience in doing live journalism work with exterior parties and clients.

This aspect was something that I was looking forward to building, so that I could gain contacts for future reference, and to help me build a professional reputation as a good Sports Journalist.

As Sports Journalism is one of my particular interests, I wanted to build a wide scope of various works including articles, interviews, photography, video, and interactive based.

I researched and selected various clubs of which I identified as possible targets for my work, and contacted some based on my particular interests. I also had some of my own contacts of which I used to ensure that I could carry out the works I intended to, if I was struggling to gain alternative contacts to carry out particular works.

In ranging the portfolio, my aim was to experience a varied amount of vocational and topical journalism works that I could use or distribute and gain publication.

I delivered two pieces of journalism, of which used similar formats, for a professional newspaper, as part of an Olympic feature. This was very advantageous in gaining this opportunity as it gave me a platform and an outlet to get my work published and also it builds upon contacts, and as part of developing a style and professional portfolio of work.

Through using Sports Journalism as the area of work, it enabled me to use a section of media in Interactive, that is developing into a more common and useable medium in delivering sports stories. This is not yet a common everyday practise for local journalism professional bodies or organisations, so it was a fantastic opportunity to deliver and showcase an area of journalism that can be used as an alternative to writing articles that will not be published until the flowing day or even on the Monday after the Saturday sport in a print newspaper.

The Interactive based sports story was the area that I was most sceptical but most surprised by exploring. I had created a live Twitter feed, and Storified this using professional’s reaction, fans reaction, and my own comments, and also incorporating pictures, whilst delivering the story in full in only minutes after the game itself had finished.

A feature I found in doing this was that I had created something so quickly, and precise using professional sports persons comments and Tweets that I had essentially scooped the local newspaper to a story that they did not report until two days later.

In journalism, that would have essentially made their story old news, as it was already out there in the public domain, delivered by a trustworthy source in a sports professional.

The works I have undertaken have given me a platform of a portfolio to develop and expand upon in the future, and it has also given me confidence in my own ability as a journalist to develop and deliver stories that are in the public interest.

This has been done whilst retaining the old fashioned journalism styles of articles, but also exploring a range of new media storytelling techniques, of which I can develop and pioneer into a personal profession of delivering sports journalism to the audiences.

The sports journalism portfolio that I have created will continue to expand and develop as I create and gain more works in the profession, and I plan to undertake as many opportunities as possible in gaining the experiences needed to become recognised and published as a reliable and professional source.

Overall

The self-Initiated project was great experience as it allowed me to tailor the tasks and experiment with areas of journalism that I am interested within. It also enabled me to try other areas of journalism that I am not so familiar with to gain more experience and develop understanding and knowledge in the areas.

The ideas behind all of the work I undertook was to make contacts within the sports and media industry, gain work published or commended by professionals, of which has been identified as a possibility, and to develop a wide range of portfolio that can be expanded on in the future.

I feel that I have achieved what I set out to achieve from the beginning, although there are some areas that I would like to gain a better idea and experience within, but this has initially given me prior experience of issues and successes that I can use to keep on developing my expertise within journalism.