19 February 2009

Amongst all the usual activity over the weekend in Sheffield UKA welcomed three budding young journalists from the Supporter to Reporter initiative to cover the Aviva European Trials & UK Championships.

Supporter to Reporter (S2R) isan inspiring and motivating media project, giving young people real-life learning and career development opportunities in sports reporting.

Reporters produce radio and video reports from sports events around the country and publish them on a dedicated sports reporting station on Radiowaves, where each student reporter has their own web page where they can publish audio, video, text and images.

With the target of linking up with every Olympic sport, so far having reported from 9 out of the 26, S2R found themselves at their first of many athletics events on Valentines Day 2009.

Here’s what local S2R Sheffield recruit Sarah had to say about her day:

“Having never done sports journalism before, I was nervous yet excited when I showed up at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield. I was there with Supporter to Reporter for the Aviva European Trials & UK Championships.

After getting our embarrassing pictures taken for our media passes, we met with Lachlan from Fast Track who very kindly showed us around the venue and gave us plenty of help and useful information.

We then made our way to the Media room to discuss what angles we were going to take for our stories – and drink the  free Red Bull! We decided to make a short film that consisted of various interviews with athletes and “backstage” footage of the event.

I really enjoyed interviewing the athletes, especially Akeem Ogunyemi, whom I found to be a really inspirational and humble person.

People at the event were all very accommodating and surprisingly willing to help me out: a member of security allowed me to take photographs from the high stands, and a professional photographer offered me his place for a few minutes so that I could get a good picture when all the other trackside peepholes were occupied. Nice!

The only downside to the day was my nervousness – but fortunately I got over it in time. All in all, I had a really great day at the EIS and it’s made me really keen on sports journalism, and also helped me gain confidence in myself. I would do it again tomorrow!”

For more information about the S2R scheme visit www.radiowaves.co.uk/supporter