Internship Reviews, Football Journalist, SN@CK Media Internship — April 30, 2010 12:08 — 0 Comments
SN&CK Media Internship Review
When I applied for an internship with SN&CK Media, I’d already heard of both the company’s websites, having frequented FootballFanCast.com and FootballTransferTavern.com to source news on my beloved Tottenham Hotspur. However, although I’d always harboured an ambition of becoming a sport, or more specifically, a football journalist, I’d never pursued the dream. However, SN&CK Media gave me the opportunity to write about sports that I doubt I’d have gotten elsewhere, and for this I cannot praise the internship highly enough.
After submitting my CV and a brief statement, I was invited to write a few sample articles. After these were submitted, I met with Niall Coen (MD) and Chief Editor Martin Crawford for an interview, and started work for the company a few weeks later.
An induction day covered the majority of the technical I.T. based information that was necessary, as well as a basic outline of what makes a good article, what makes a good title and how to source material etc. However, this is truly an internship where you learn on the job, and by the end of the 12 weeks, my writing and confidence had improved beyond recognition.
The working week included three articles a day (one for Football Transfer Tavern, two for Football FanCast), and I must admit, at first, this was a struggle. However, Martin Crawford, the Chief Editor, was extremely approachable and understanding, and if issues arose, Martin was quick to offer assistance. After the end of each week, there was a conference call with Martin and Sarah Kennedy (MD, SN&CK Media) and these calls gave good feedback on the work I’d produced for the week. Further, an intern report was filled out and completed every week via Google Analytics, which documented the number of reads I’d procured, and was vital to my development as a web based journalist. This intern plan also offered further feedback at the end of each week, and was a helpful way to augment, and track my own progress.
Working from home can be difficult at times, but I found that the workload kept me fully occupied, and I was constantly motivated to achieve higher readership with each passing week. The internship gives interns the opportunity to source their own stories and articles, and I became very interested in manipulating titles to ensure the highest number of hits. As media is now so web based, an understanding of search engines like NewsNow.com and social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook is imperative to achieving high readership. Without high readership there is no advertising, and this is how websites like Football FanCast make money. SN&CK Media certainly give their interns an excellent overview of how to use these tools to achieve hits for articles and therefore the website, as well as helping to improve the quality of the intern’s written work.
Finally, I was rewarded for my work and graft with the opportunity to represent the company on Sky News, and I went on the Dot Com show three times. The show went out live, and was designed to represent the ‘internet’ and ‘bloggers’ reaction to current events (I discussed the John Terry affair, and injuries to David Beckham and Wayne Rooney).
The internship for SN&CK Media was hard work, but I have now had my work read by near enough 200,000 people, whilst also making appearances on national television to discuss football. At the induction day, we were told to think about what sort of writer we wanted to be. Football FanCast gave me the opportunity to express myself and dip my foot in the ocean before taking a swim, and I doubt I’d have gotten the opportunity anywhere else.
Mark Turner
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