Internship Reviews, Football Journalism, Internship Scheme — August 5, 2010 12:34 — 0 Comments
SN&CK Media Football Writer Internship Review
Having graduated with a degree in law in the summer of 2009, I swiftly found myself at a cross-roads. Disillusioned by the prospect of a career in said field, I decided that I would quite like a career in journalism. Unfortunately, with little previous experience under my belt, opportunities within the area appeared scarce. That is, until I came across an advert for a three-month internship at SN&CK Media as a football writer.
“The opportunity to WORK as a football writer? Surely this is too good to be true, right?”
Whilst similar thoughts raced around my mind, I decided to apply for the aforementioned internship, and was lucky enough to be invited to an interview with SN&CK Media MD Niall Coen. Niall explained the details of the scheme to me, as well as a little about the company and its websites.
Shortly afterwards I was offered a position on the internship scheme (an offer which I gratefully accepted).
The start of the internship was marked with a compulsory training day. At this day I got to meet my fellow interns for the first time, as well as editor Martin Crawford and MD Sarah Kennedy. We were briefed on how to use the website’s content management system, as well as provided with general tips on writing for the site.
The 12-week internship was split into three roughly equal ‘stages’; stage one, designed to ease my fellow interns and I into the role, saw us assigned two-three articles a day (for the company’s primary website, www.footballfancast.com), with each article title selected by Martin. At first I was issued several titles pertaining to my beloved Liverpool, with other topics selected as I gained more confidence and experience. I was also given the opportunity to write static content for the website’s fan-generated Wikipedia pages.
The latter stages (two and three) of the internship saw my fellow interns and I issued with more responsibility and artistic freedom – choosing article titles was now our responsibility. These changes helped to develop another set of journalistic skills – learning how to spot stories, and how to spot stories that would generate large reads. Choosing articles for other interns meant selecting stories that would be suited to their writing capabilities.
Whilst I thoroughly enjoyed the internship, I must stress that it proved to be hard work on several occasions! I was frequently pushed out of my comfort zone, and spent many days writing for periods of up to 10 hours. However, Martin was wonderfully supportive throughout the course of the internship, providing expertise and motivation. Martin also compiled exhaustive and extensive statistics and reports, allowing my colleagues and I to see tangible proof of our progress and success.
Deciding to apply for the internship at SN&CK Media has proven itself to be one of the best decisions I have ever made (and then some). Thanks to the opportunity provided to me by the website, I can boast the following:
- I now have 125 published articles, articles which have amassed 461,728 reads (and counting),
- I have appeared as a ‘guest expert’ on Sky News live dotcom show on five occasions,
- I have over 250 followers on my Twitter page,
- I have discovered a sense of direction and purpose (am now set to go back to university to do a masters in journalism).
I would thoroughly recommend this internship scheme to anyone with a love of football and writing.
Zarif Rasul
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