As part of Staffordshire University’s Sports Journalism course, all third-year students are required to gain 146-hours of experience working for a publication, sporting club, or PR agency that focuses on the world of sport. This is part of our work placement and career development module.
On December 4, 2021, I was lucky enough to be able to attend the Paget Rangers Vs Wednesfield game at Coles Lane as a reporter for Switch Radio’s sports team. Switch Radio is a non-profit local radio station, as their slogan say it is ‘made for Birmingham’.
As someone who wants to work in the radio industry, I jumped at the chance to work with Switch Radio as part of their team covering local football in the Birmingham and Wolverhampton areas. Dan Jones, who studies at Nottingham University, and I were assigned to help with the coverage of Paget Rangers, a team that resides in Sutton Coldfield. I try to make it to most home games.
I use two pieces of software to help with live reporting on the game, the first is called Stacks, a messaging software that allows the team to communicate and stay up-to-date with each other. For example, Ben McPhilips was on live commentary and whenever there was a goal or other notable event, I would use stacks to message Ben to let him know to cut to me so I could give an update on the game.
This is where we would use the second piece of software, known as Cleanfeed, an online studio for live audio and recording. I would be muted listening to Ben on live coms, when I message him on slacks, he would cue me in, and I would have to unmute myself and give the update. I’d then hand back to Ben.
I also had to give a review at both half-time and full-time, keeping it to no longer that a minute. After the game Dan and I also got some post-match interviews with two Paget players, Jevani Robinson and Olly Grith.
Check out my vlog of the day which is now live on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/yQSgAgZPSIk .
By Joe Rutherford-Slater, level 6 Sports Journalism student at Staffordshire University