Budding sports writers from De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) raced against the clock to produce live match reports from the Premier League clash between Leicester City and Newcastle United.
The group of third-year students from DMU’s BA in Journalism watched the action from the press box at the King Power Stadium before completing a 350-word match report.
Their reports had to be completed within 10 minutes of the final whistle, and filed to lecturer Lee Marlow, who leads the sports journalism module on the course.
“We look at all aspects of sports journalism in the module, but this is the ultimate test, a live match report from the press box at the King Power,” said Lee, a veteran journalist, author, and three-time winner of the Society of Editors’ Feature Writer of the Year award.
“It’s a test of their time management, their football knowledge – and their snappy writing. It’s a brilliant experience, Leicester City are always a great help to the DMU Sports Journalism students and it’s an experience that lives with them long after the final whistle.”
While their match reports may not be destined for a newspaper this time around, the pressure on the students is very real as the exercise is assessed, and accounts for 40% of their grade for the sports journalism module.
DMU Sports Journalism student Michal Okonksi said: “The match report assessment was a genuinely great experience and a real glimpse behind the curtain at what our futures may look like in sports reporting.
“I’m grateful to DMU Journalism for giving us this opportunity. All the Leicester City staff made us feel welcome and the food was a bonus.
“I’ll remember this experience for a long time. It was nerve-wracking but I managed to get my match report in eight minutes after the final whistle. It was a challenge but we’d practised this – we knew what we were doing.”
The exercise is designed to replicate the real-world experience of a football correspondent. Match reports may be an old-school journalism skill, but they remain a mainstay of sports reporting, even if they are now submitted by email, instead of being dictated over the phone to a copytaker at a newspaper.
