First person Narrative Project : Print/written. Evan Katz : Final project

This study abroad was an eye-opener when it came to sports media before going on this trip. I’m not going to lie to you; I was so focused only on ESPN when it came to sports journalism. Growing up in America, when people ask what you want to do in sports, most people respond, “I want to be on SportsCenter or work with ESPN.” That’s great, but thanks to this study abroad program, I’ve realized I’m not fully exploring my bubble. In fact, I’m limiting myself to that one singular opportunity when sports are powerful worldwide. I might be more interested if there’s an opportunity to work abroad covering soccer. Before this trip, I feared being far away from home, but it’s started to come to my attention that with that attitude, it's impossible to survive working in sports journalism. You must be willing to travel with the team or maybe to another country to cover a specific athlete. It might sometimes seem like a grind, but it’s worth it.





One significant skill I learned from this trip is that accountability is critical to sports reporting. Every place we visited, or person we talked to mentioned that. What does that mean? Responsibility, in this case, means you have to report things fairly but also be able to tell the story. One day in class, I remember discussing a story regarding Tampa Ray’s refusal to wear the pride patch. This connects to accountability as a sports journalist because you can’t just tell good stories constantly. There are bad situations that come across, and the reporter's job is to provide a report to its readers that fans might not get otherwise. For example, when we visited Foro Italico, we saw much of Mussolini's artwork. That is nowhere near a good story, and as the media, we must think about it; we want to cover it. We can’t just let that slide and move on with our days. We, as journalists, must cover the history and not hide it under our sleeves. Just because we are not a “fan” of something doesn’t mean no attention should be paid to it all.



This leads me to another critical thing about sports journalism: you can’t be a fan when reporting. This really made me think because I know I must make changes to my own lifestyle. Last year, I was a freshman at Michigan State. I felt like I went to every sporting event there was, not as a reporter but as a fan. No one wants to read a fan article in a news article. My job as a sports journalist is to report fairly on both sides. It’s non-negotiable. Going forward, I will seek ways to get my foot in the door, whether through Impact, State News, BigtenU, or other platforms like Spartan Sports Report. I must do better because this is what I want to do.



I mentioned all those different platforms above because a critical concept I heard around this trip is the ability to adapt and adjust to other platforms. One example that really stood out to me was from Roland-Garros when we met with Courtney Nguyen. She works in multimedia; one minute, she could be doing radio, the next match a wires score, and then you have TV bits. This connects to me because I don’t know what I want to do yet when it comes to radio, TV, and newspapers, or even if I could manage to do multiple. Each platform has a way of doing things, which is neat. I am lucky to have experience in all three from high school and a little continued in my college career.



While in Italy, we got to go to The Italian Olympic Committee, also known as CONI. It sparked interest in how they use their platform to tell and manage their athletes' stories. They create different interview packages to highlight their athletes that any Italian channel can get. At the Olympics, they are also in charge of the mixed zone, which I had not heard about before; this is where all the journalists stand asking questions. I thought this was interesting because they made it very clear that they try their best to give each athlete the same amount of coverage rather than just 2 questions for this athlete compared to the 7. This whole process made me think of the challenges that journalists face. For example, let’s say there is a track and field event on one side of town and a swimming event on the other in the city; I can’t be at two places at once, so that’s where CONI’s help comes in. 



Throughout this trip, I practiced several skills to help me expand my reporting, whether recording sound, describing the taste of something, or even trying to memorize something. It didn’t really hit me at first, the point of those. I better understand now that, as a sports journalist, the audience relies on you to describe everything to them the best you can. On the radio, the job is to paint the picture clearly enough because your listeners can’t see. In television, the job is to think about to describe a play your audience might be seeing on television. In newspapers, the job is a little mixed; not only is it to give a detailed recap but also describe key points and tell the reader the smells or the sights of the stadium you may be attending. As a journalist, you have so many people relying on you. I have learned over these 4 weeks that culture is influential as well; different countries do things differently, and it's essential for sports journalists to be able to adapt to what they are seeing, whether it's language or the way people act because, in a locker-room that’s full of different cultures, you have told stories about a bunch of different kinds of players with respect and dignity. I learned, meeting with Elisa Blanchi, that just because you speak one way doesn’t mean the player might as well. Reporters must adapt to their surroundings around them, 






Also, journalists have the power not only to control what side of the story the audience gets but also to hear the story's truth. During our time in Paris, we got to tour the Agence France-Presse, or as I will refer to them, here is AFP. They must provide hard news with facts. One thing they pride themselves on is fact-checkers because, at the end of the day, their clients rely on them to distribute accurate information. This is hard for me to wrap my head around since they cover so many different audiences. But it relates to sports because they might have to verify a report of a player moving to another team. You don’t want to be wrong; no dream that something happened when it didn’t.





Another exciting company to see for me was Eurosport. Eurosport has so much to offer as a sports journalist; I saw a lot of opportunities. The company can broadcast in 20 different languages, which is impressive. This shows that Eurosport is truly the worldwide leader in sports. They have everything from darts to soccer. The big thing about that is all the suitable packages they have. Without rights, you don’t have content. One thing I learned while I was there was everything in life as a journalist. That’s big for me because that makes attention to detail more critical because you can’t go back once it happens. The big thing that Eurosport has is its role in the consumer. They have many packages to show customers exactly what they want, whether one match, one month of games, or the entire subscription. This business model is essential because they can have about 112 live sporting events at once. This company told me what I said initially: there’s more to this world than just the common ESPN. But the thing that Eurosport really preached was that they were influential in how they broadcast, and frankly, in my eyes, no one could do it better.



Another network that had a complex operation was L’Equipe. They have a television and a newspaper station, suitable for someone like me who wants to be a multimedia journalist. What caught my eye was that both of those productions have different standards but are both under the same branch. The newspaper is more of the hard news, whereas TV has felt free, like a debate network, and has more freedom to explore. Massive credit to them; the creativity to have the multimedia perspective is vast, but it’s also a significant risk as it can ruin relationships. They are an immense sports media company in Europe. L’Equipe taught me that creativity is a virtue, but you must buckle down and be ready to switch gears in moments. 







Finally, this trip taught me ways to think outside the box, whether it was the Washington Post, CNN, Vatican media, Eurosport, (ETC) I learned that I must be open-minded. Open minded in the sense that each company has its own way of doing business, and I knew that here. Throughout that process, I learned that I must put time into thinking of questions, and that’s what I will have to do in the real world. I must be open-minded and understanding when I interview different athletes; each person has a story, and it’s my job to be the person who uncovers it for the world. Now, understanding a piece of that equation means knowing that there’s more than one language, and I must understand the challenges that might cause. 


To conclude, I’m forever grateful for this trip; it was life-changing on a personal front but also from a business perspective. I came out of my shell a lot on this trip, but I will call it lessons learned rather than class because this truly changed how I think of sports Journalism. Sports journalism is not just sitting in the press box eating chocolate chip cookies; there’s more of a process that needs to be more respected and recognized among the public. I got opportunities I never could have experienced without seeing the excellent sign in the hallway that made me so curious. The most extensive advice I could give any student is to leave your comfort zone because you never know what you will be in for. This trip did just that for me. I learned so much about sports journalism and the differences it may have around the world