About me
One of the defining parts of my college experience has been writing for the sports section of the Michigan Daily. Currently, I am a beat reporter for the Men’s Basketball team and Senior Editor for the section. When we were picking our origin piece, I immediately gravitated towards the first article I ever wrote for the Daily. I look at that piece as a benchmark for my writing to see how much my journalistic writing has progressed.
About the Project
With the final project, there was so much I wanted to focus on between the Michigan Daily and sports journalism as a whole so I decided to highlight a couple different elements separately rather than one cohesive piece. I first researched the origins of sports journalism and how it took off as a profession. I then wanted to highlight different sports journalists who wrote for the Michigan Daily in college to showcase the impact that people who used to work the same positions I now hold can have on the media landscape. Finally, I wanted to end the piece with a personal narrative discussing my experiences as a Daily writer and my general feelings about sports journalism.
My research process began with simple google searches about sports journalism and the different writers I wanted to focus on. But those searches led to deep dives that led me to a number of sources. I found a research paper by a student at Syracuse University titled, “Institutional Sports Journalism in the Digital Age” which was a launching point to learn more about the roots of sports journalism. Researching each of the writers was a unique rabbit hole to go down as I went to personal blog sites, articles, and even linkedin profiles to see what these writers had accomplished since their time at the Daily. I also used a Michigan Daily article that interviewed many former football beat writers and had them discuss their experience covering the Michigan-Ohio State game. My personal narrative was put together by looking back through old articles as well as pictures I took covering various sporting events. I thought about my experiences that I had working at the Daily and reflected on those in my writing — without a clear statement or end goal in the essay. It was fun to put together each of these sections and I am pleased with how it all turned out.
Acknoledgements
I would like to thank The Michigan Daily for creating such an amazing environment and for all the opportunities I have been afforded on the Sports section. I would like to thank my classmates in Writing 220 for creating a welcoming classroom environment and all the useful feedback I was given to make this project a success. And finally, I would like to thank Julie for being a great professor and making this class one I always looked forward to. And also for taking my crazy, half-baked idea to do something about sports journalism and help me turn it into a full-scale, interactive experience.