JOUR 485 Opening Blog

Through taking investigative journalism I will be better equipped in my future career as a sports broadcaster. This class will help build my research skills so that I can be well informed on the person I am interviewing or topic I am talking about. It will also improve my ability to find sources that are reliable and trustworthy.

There is a wide range of information on players, teams, coaches and games that I would need to research. This class will help me to efficiently find the information I need before I cover a story.

I hope to learn more about how to conduct an effective interview. I would like to become more comfortable during interviews and become better at formulating a lists of questions. I would also like to learn to go off script during an interview to ask important follow up questions when it is appropriate.

I also hope to learn how to systematically go through long documents and reports to find the valuable information. I tend to get lost when I read lengthy documents and I skip over useful facts. I am sure this class will help me develop that skill more.

This class will develop my skills as an interviewer as well as a researcher. These two skills are valuable both for life in general and in a career in sports broadcasting. Being able to find reliable information is a skill that everyone should develop.

The skills I develop in this class will directly translate into my professional career as I could be conducting a lot of interviews. There are a lot of different kinds of interviews in sports broadcasting such as pregame, postgame or even halftime interviews. Each type of interview will require different preparation and will also vary in length and urgency.

Developing my interviewing skills will go further than just asking the right questions. I will have to become more comfortable conducting interviews with total strangers. I also have to make the interviewee feel comfortable in the interview for the best result.

These are all of the ways that I hope to benefit from taking investigative reporting. These skills that I hope to develop over the semester will prove to be useful in both my life and future career as a sports broadcaster.