Capturing Iconic Moments and Emotions as a Sports Journalist
Emotions and sports go hand in hand, like peanut butter and jelly. No human behavioral or psychological notion is as ubiquitous as one’s emotions in regards to sports. Athletes, coaches, sports executives, and fans feel different emotions about sports, including excitement, rage, devotion, joy, despair, and anxiety. These emotions often have significant motivational, behavioral, and interpersonal impacts in sporting contexts.
As a sports journalist, these iconic moments and emotions must be captured without obscuring facts surrounding games. These moments and emotions lead to human connections and uncover revelations that delight readers, as well as informing about their favorite athletes and teams. By delivering emotionally driven sports journalism, scribes command attention and create shared feelings between athletes and readers.
Capturing iconic and emotional sporting moments, however, takes skill. Mediocre sports reporting is characterized by excessive emotion and the misinformation conjured by that excess. Instead of telling readers how to feel or using the sports reporter’s feelings as a proxy for what and how an audience should think, a good sports story provides details that readers can use to make judgments and forge emotional connections with their favorite characters.
Understanding the weight of the game
Understanding the antecedents and emotions tied to specific events is the initial step in determining whether an event is iconic. While sports journalism is exciting and fun, not every moment is newsworthy. For example, the New York Knicks beating the injury ridden Oklahoma City Thunder in a regular season game would not necessarily be considered an iconic sporting moment, unless something significant occurred—such as a brawl between the players and fans.
Conversely, the New York Knicks winning an NBA title despite being an 8th seed and coming back from a 3 1 deficit in the finals would generate several iconic moments. In this scenario, a sports journalist can write how the Knicks became the only 8th seed to win a title and the second team to come back from a 3 1 deficit. When you have a significant understanding of the weight of the game, you can quickly determine whether a particular instant is or is not iconic.
For sports journalists to understand the significance of a particular game, however, they must conduct research before it begins. Without background knowledge, the significance of a particular moment is often overlooked, ultimately impacting how the story is told. Similarly, understanding a game’s significance allows the journalist to find a better story angle to engage readers, attract advertisers, and soar above competitors.
Understanding the importance of a good story angle to maximize overall reach is essential to succeeding in this competitive industry. One way to find the best angle is to evaluate the information and consider what is relevant. By doing so, you avoid the monotonous cycle of only reporting game results and, instead, communicating your core message in a new and fresh manner.
Besides understanding the game’s significance, you must also be familiar with the game. Depending on your editors, you might get assigned to cover the National Women’s Cricket League without knowing anything about cricket. Many sports journalists cover sports they have never played and know nothing about. In these cases, comprehensive research must be conducted by watching videos online and learning the basics to get a feel for the game’s rhythm. You can then dig into the background of the specific athletes and teams you will be covering to look for narratives you can use for your stories and commentaries.
Look for the individuals you would like to talk to and determine the questions you want to ask. You can also ask your superiors about the league’s background. They might share league traditions, where and how to find the stat sheets, what is the best way to get an interview with a difficult coach, who are the difficult coaches, and what seats are the best to select in the press box.
Ask the right questions
Watching and documenting moments that occur during a sporting event is only part of what is required to capture its iconic moments. Sports journalists must also ask the right questions to find the information they need and encourage discussions among sports fans. After a momentous sporting event, athletes and coaches usually have thoughts and opinions they want to express to describe important moments.
The sports journalist’s job is to unveil these feelings and emotions and objectively write or report on them. By asking questions, sports journalists give meaning to particular moments and humanize them to appeal to their audience. Asking good questions is an art that takes practice. When asking questions, think about what you hope to learn.
An excellent tip is to ask specific questions to elicit more specific answers. This means asking candid and straightforward questions even when it is uncomfortable. It is not uncommon for budding sports journalists to avoid asking frank questions for fear of being shunned by athletes and coaches. While asking questions, you must also identify whether your query will result in a fact based answer or someone else’s opinion.
Try to develop open ended questions about what you want to know. It is not uncommon for sports journalists to pepper their questions with too much detail that overwhelms athletes. This practice should be avoided as it increases the likelihood of receiving simple yes or no responses to your questions.
Although yes and no answers are sufficient to help you write an article, they do not necessarily unearth the feelings and emotions of athletes and coaches towards particular moments. By asking pointed questions, sports personalities may reveal more during interviews, allowing you to create a more interesting story than one written with yes and no answers. To ensure clarity, you can also frame questions in a manner that is unbiased and easy to understand.
After asking a question, you must allow plenty of time for the person to answer. Allocate sufficient time for your interviews to ensure productive conversations. Sports journalists who work in the best sports news sites often follow this common trend in their deadline driven environments. With most sports events occurring in the evening, sports journalists have little time to interview athletes, write stories, and submit them for publication the next day.
Determine the angle of the story before the game ends. This allows you to ask the right questions and write the story immediately after the interview. By giving athletes and coaches sufficient time to answer your questions, you demonstrate that you value their answers and are interested in what they have to say about the event.
You may also ask follow up questions to learn more about the responses you have received. When asking follow up questions, choose queries that inspire additional conversation, rather than questions that cause athletes to become defensive or annoyed, resulting in one word answers for subsequent questions. This means inquiring about topics that highlight your curiosity and genuine desire to learn more.
Speaking the language of action
Good sports journalism is about finding the right words to describe iconic sporting moments. Anyone can write about who won or lost a game, but only a few can eloquently describe a particular moment that makes readers and viewers feel as if they were part of the event as it occurred. Sports journalists must learn to speak the language of action to better express the magnitude of specific moments.
Avoid clichés and, instead, use colorful words such as stroked, launched, sashayed, tiptoed, sliced, and floated to illustrate the movements of athletes. This adds color and excitement to your stories or game coverage and creates vivid pictures of the action for the audience.
Using these descriptive words also helps to make the game more accessible to casual fans and keeps them engaged. It is worth noting, however, that speaking the language of action is a double edged sword. You must pay attention to the game, especially if it is your first time covering a particular sport. Watch what the athletes do and consider how you could best describe their movements.
This allows you to generate tension and excitement in your article or commentary and creates a connection with the audience. By using descriptive language to express emotions about the game, sports journalists can help the audience feel like they are part of the action. Pay attention to the words you use—especially when doing a game commentary—to avoid biases.
If you are a sports journalist, there is a good chance you love sports and root for specific teams. It is not uncommon for sports journalists to become subjective, especially in the heat of highlighting key moments. While your job is to help viewers and readers understand the significance of what is happening on the field, you must remain objective to make your commentary legitimate and unbiased.
In addition, you must understand the purpose of your commentary before deciding on the amount of descriptive language you want to use. Are you trying to provide a play by play analysis of the match or convey the emotions and excitement of the moment? Once you establish your purpose, you can find a balance between description and analysis.
Finding this balance can be challenging, but by honing your skills, you can deliver a more polished commentary. An excellent way to enhance your sports commentary skills is to record yourself, determine instances in which you may have used too much or not enough sports language, and adjust accordingly. You may also want to write your story, experiment with different adjectives, and use multiple descriptive techniques to find what works best for you and your audience.
Seek learning opportunities
Capturing iconic sports moments is like any other discipline—you will not get better at it by only thinking about it. It takes real world practice. Think about the many dunks made by Vince Carter during his prime and bring this mentality of practice to improve your descriptions of sporting moments.
An excellent way to start practicing is by writing drafts of possible scenarios in specific sporting events. Even if you want to work in sports radio, podcasts, and broadcasting, you must hone your writing skills to find adjectives that will better suit the moment. One way to do that is to find a brilliant and award winning sports journalist and read their material.
Reading great articles will force you to evaluate your writing. Pay attention to the content and how the piece is written. Evaluate word choice, sentence structure, pacing, and paragraph length to determine how the writers create narratives, and then thread facts throughout the pieces to enhance their points. As you find articles to read written by great sports journalists, you will realize how well they create, develop, and deliver a fluid narrative that engages and keeps fans on edge.
You may also want to reread everything you have written to look for errors and edit your text. First drafts often bear little resemblance to finished products. The best sports journalists do not shove facts and opinions upon their readers. They find a way to create drama and connect details to develop engaging narratives.
To hone your skills in writing articles, conducting interviews, and participating in sports commentary, complete an Online Sports Journalism Degree program at a leading academic institution, such as St. Bonaventure University Online. Depending on your chosen academic institution, a sports journalism degree will provide you with the training required to conduct compelling and informative interviews.
Contrary to popular belief, conducting interviews takes rigorous training and an established understanding of human nature and how to interact with others. As such, you must choose an online sports journalism program that maximizes your chances of success and return on investment. Check whether your chosen academic institution has the required Higher Learning Commission (HLC) accreditations for its sports journalism degree program.
Having the necessary accreditations ensures you will receive a top notch sports journalism education. Because a sports journalism curriculum emphasizes creative writing, analytical thinking, and interdisciplinary teamwork, an accredited degree program is necessary for sports journalists to succeed. The HLC develops precise metrics and benchmarks to evaluate the quality of online education and guarantees that the institution’s journalism degree programs uphold high criteria. Accreditations establish the institution’s commitment to higher standards and provide students with the best possible experience to become competitive sports journalists.
What to expect from an online sports journalism program
Sports journalism represents more than stories that appear on television, websites, or publications. Good sports journalism is a process in which data is gathered, evaluated, and shared in a manner that engages people and makes a difference in their lives. It is no surprise that the path to earning a sports journalism degree is rigorous and comprehensive, as well as involves traditional and digital media training.
Although the boundaries of storytelling have crossed multiple platforms, even the most technological endeavors require bedrock journalism skills and values. This means you will receive comprehensive training that allows you to develop sports journalism expertise and express yourself skillfully in words and images. Doing so allows you to find, assess, and communicate information in a field that is undergoing tremendous change.
A graduate degree also helps current sports journalism professionals advance within the field. Continued study will keep you current on the latest changes, trends, and technologies in print, online, and broadcast media. This is essential, considering most sports journalists now share stories on social media as they happen.
An example of a skilled sports journalist is NBA reporter Shams Charania, who breaks news stories on X (formerly known as Twitter) before writing about them for The Athletic. While this might seem counterintuitive, it is common practice in today’s world of sports journalism; not doing so means your story will not be noticed. While working towards your graduate journalism degree, you will learn the best practices of social media sports reporting. Some courses included in the program include newspaper and expository writing, journalistic research, and article editing.
Are you ready to become a sports journalist?
While working as a sport journalist, every day is different. You might attend the Major League Soccer playoffs, National Basketball Association finals, and MotoGP World Grand Prix this week or travel to Europe next week to cover the UEFA Champions League. Whatever assignment you are given, sports journalism allows you to capture iconic moments that immortalize athletes in sporting folklore.
