Skip to content
FYOS 21: Women, Sports, and Media
Introduction
Course objectives
Grades and assignments
Schedule
Policies
Introduction
Women in sports
Women in media
Women in sports media
More
Share
Explore

Women in sports media

Introduction

Rather than reading or watching stories about women in sports and media, you’ll be telling your own stories. In this final section, you’ll interview a woman working in sports media (more specifically, an alumna of our program) about her preparation, her career, and her challenges and victories. You’ll then take your interview and turn it into a video that may go on the “EJ’s Game Plan” feature we produce in partnership with Ernie Johnson. Finally, for our last two sections, you will present your interview and discuss what you got out of the experience.

Background

⁠
EJ’s Game Plan
⁠
⁠
⁠
Mastering the Informational Interview
⁠
⁠
⁠
Survey
⁠
(due Monday, Sept. 20)
The survey is just a question about what kind of careers do you find most interesting, either as potential careers for yourself or just as an interesting topic. I’ll use this to match you with a subject and with an interview partner from class.
Prep (due Wednesday, Sept. 22 in the 07_prep channel): see below for details?

Activity

As I said in the introduction, the main part of this section is to actually tell a story of your own rather than reading someone else’s story. More specifically, you’ll work with a partner to do background research and conduct an informational interview with a woman working in sports media and the opportunities and challenges she faces. To make things a little easier, I’ve already lined up a number of our alumnae who are happy to talk to you. My hope is that this is not only a good experience for you producing media, but it’s also a chance for you to network and get some good advice about navigating UGA and launching your own career.
The first thing you’ll need to do is make a list about the information you need beforehand. I will set you up with your interview subject, but you can get information on her background via LinkedIn or bios on websites or social or elsewhere. When you do that, I’d suggest writing up a bio of your own, in your own words, that you can use for your interview prep. The prep is the most important part, because it will form the basis of the questions you ask.
As you write up that paragraph, think about those questions. What are things you don’t see about her background or her current job or what’s going on with her? Make sure you’re ready to ask about those things. Here are a few sample questions that might get you on the right track. These are phrased the way I would ask them, so feel free to adapt so they capture your voice more clearly:
* What made you choose UGA?
* Were you always interested in sports media, or was there some experience that made you say, yeah, this is something I’d like to do?
* How did you get [your current job or previous jobs]?
* What’s a typical day or week like in your job?
* How do you think being in sports is different from other industries?
* What kind of challenges have you faced in your career? Either in terms of getting to do what you want to do or dealing with life in the working world?
* Are there things you wish you’d done differently in college? How about as a professional?
* What’s the best career advice you’ve ever gotten or you wish someone had told you?
Two other things you should do. First, ask them to say their name and their current job title at the front. Second, ask them to repeat the question back to you and then answer it. Both those may sound a little awkward up front, but it will give you stronger work. I would make sure to write down all your questions and have them on a sheet in front of you so you make sure to cover everything you need; you and your partner can switch off on questions or decide that one person will do the first half of the interview and the other can do the second half.
Something that’s super-important,: make sure you follow up on these questions. Don’t just go from one to the other, but listen hard to what they’re telling you and ask for more specifics. “Can you tell me a little more about that?” or “What made that so important?” are the kind of questions to think about. That will give you not just the what, but the why and the how—and that’s what listeners care about.
So when your prep is done, that’s when it’s time to get ready to record. First thing, set up the interview. Email is the best way to get ahold of these folks, and I’ll send you their addresses. Find a good time you can talk to them, and let me know—I can let you use our conference room so you have a relatively quiet space for better sound quality.
Do it via Zoom to make it easy to record, but when you jump on the call, make sure you’re recording. I’d suggest testing this out with your partner beforehand to make sure it works. It’s also best to make sure in Zoom that you’re in Speaker Mode, not in Gallery Mode.
A few more details:
* The interview needs to be at least 15 minutes long. We might post some or all of these interviews on our [EJ’s Game Plan web site](https://www.ejsgameplan.com/) . (Please watch a few of the videos already posted on the site to get an idea of what you need.)
* By the assignment deadline, upload your video file
to this site
⁠
.
* Please name your file this way: YourLastName_YourInterviewSubject’sFirstAndLastName_Fall2021.
That should be it. For me, the best thing about being a journalist was getting to do interviews like this, trying to make someone feel comfortable talking about herself and listening closely for what I could learn for my own life as well as my stories. Even for an introvert like me, it’s a lot of fun, so I hope it’s fun for you as well.
Women in sports media
4
Date
Time
Section
Type
Description
1
9/20/2021
​11:59 PM
Women in sports media
Homework
Background readings;
survey
⁠
⁠
2
9/21/2021
​12:45 PM
Women in sports media
Class
Introducing informational interviews and production
3
9/23/2021
​12:45 PM
Women in sports media
Class
Discussion of interviews and time to schedule
4
9/24/2021
​11:59 PM
Women in sports media
Homework
See activity above for prep assignment
5
9/28/2021
​12:45 PM
Women in sports media
Class
Time for interviews
6
9/29/2021
​11:59 PM
Women in sports media
Assignment
Upload raw version of video
to this site
⁠
⁠
7
9/30/2021
​12:45 PM
Women in sports media
Class
Time for editing—BRING HEADPHONES
8
10/5/2021
​12:45 PM
Women in sports media
Class
Presentations
9
10/7/2021
​12:45 PM
Women in sports media
Class
Presentations
No results from filter
⁠


Want to print your doc?
This is not the way.
Try clicking the ⋯ next to your doc name or using a keyboard shortcut (
CtrlP
) instead.