BA (Hons) in Sport Journalism

What will you study?

Studying our Sport Journalism BA (Hons) course will equip you with the knowledge and expertise in the specialist area of sports media, journalism and sports reporting. In theory, you will critically examine the political, commercial and regulatory contexts as well as ethical and legal journalistic practice in our Inside the Journalism Industry unit. With a focus on sport, our Sport in Society unit will introduce you to the origins, history and development of various sports and its relation to the media. Similarly, you will examine the complex relationship between sport and media in our Sport, Media and Culture unit to understand the link between sport, sponsorship, advertisers and stakeholders as well as the ethical implications for this. In areas of journalism, you will learn to identify newsworthy stories and subsequently write news stories and feature articles for a series of platforms in our Reporting and Writing unit while also considering elements of professionalism and ethics in your work. To support you with this, our unit in The Art and Craft of Journalism will improve your awareness and critical appreciation of fine journalism and in doing so, improve your writing. You will have the chance to participate in editing workshops and create long-form pieces of journalism so you can demonstrate and develop your writing skills.

Whether you are interested in print, digital, online or broadcast, this course aims to equip you with the various practical skills for the journalism industry. You will develop the digital storytelling skills to record and edit audio and video in our Introduction to Digital Storytelling unit. With a focus on sport, you will be able to practise a range of sports reporting, broadcasting, writing and editing skills in live situations in our Practical Sports Journalism unit. Here, you will have the opportunity to explore various types of sports stories from match reports to investigative features. If you are passionate about broadcast, our Digital Production Skills unit will build on your digital broadcast news skills for television, radio and online platforms while also refining your editorial and voice skills. This will be particularly helpful for you during your Multimedia Newsdays where you will get the chance to put your broadcast and online skills along with your journalistic knowledge to actual practice. In this unit, you will engage with real-life, on-the-grounds reporting where you will find your own news stories, engage with sources and produce your own news programmes and online news content.

Building on newsdays, you will also have the option to develop these skills further in our Advanced Multimedia for Journalism unit across 15 newsdays where you will work on more complex and longer form radio and television pieces. Moreover, if you are passionate about radio, our Radio 24/7 for Journalists unit will equip you with the skills to produce a variety of radio programmes and audio content to an industry standard under professional work environments. Similarly, if you have a particular interest in audio storytelling, then our Radio, Audio and Podcasting unit will enable you to develop your digital audio editing skills by producing various types of content using studio and location recording techniques. This extends into areas of PR studies where you will learn to use public relations as a tool for reputation management and marketing communications in our Public Relations and Marketing unit. You will integrate concepts from public relations, advertising and digital media to form effective marketing communication strategies. To ensure that you are engaging with legally safe and compliant practice, our Law, Regulation & Public Administration unit will introduce you to legal, civic and regulatory knowledge.

More importantly, you will also have the opportunity in to showcase your knowledge, skills and ideas acquired from this course in our Practical Special Project – CnC unit. Here, you will be able to conduct your project within an area of your interest that is also relevant to your studies, and this may involve exploring topics within radio and audio, media communications and journalism. Alternatively, you can undertake a major research project into a topic of your interest that is strongly relevant to your field of study in our Dissertation Special Project – CnC unit.

How will you be assessed?

Assessment methods vary across the course enabling students to develop strategies for a range of tasks methods of evaluation and presentation giving them valuable employability experience. At all stages students receive formative feedback with every formative assignment and summative feedback is given within 20 working days of submission for level 4 and 5 and within 15 working days for level 6.

Individual tutors all offer the opportunity to discuss any feedback in more detail at each level of study. As student skills and subject knowledge develop over the duration of their course it is expected that they will develop increasingly sophisticated responses to assessment and employ increasingly effective methods of peer and self-review.

Career opportunities for graduates of this course include sports journalism publishing copywriting public relations media research and digital media.

Rosie Bonass graduated and went on to be the Women's Football Social Lead at UEFA. Rosie says "I was given the opportunity to work at Luton Town FC as part of my course, which helped me to land a job as Media Executive at Tottenham Hotspur FC and then my current role as Women's Football Social Lead at UEFA. I can't thank the University of Bedfordshire enough."