For around a year now I have been quite set on pursuing journalism in further education. Sports are my main interests, so sports writing has always interested me. In fact, I wrote a sports article for my personal project in MYP 5. So during the Quarantine period of early/mid 2020 I stumbled upon an opportunity to write for a Canadian based company called Sideline Sources. I completed the application process, and shortly after began writing for them. This was over the June/July holidays, so I had a lot of free time to write. I specified in my CAS goals that I aim to continue writing articles during DP1.

The Trello Board where we brainstorm ideas

The process of me writing these articles is as follows. It starts with the brainstorming of ideas, which we do on a planning website and app which is called Trello.

Headline pitch is where we put forward our ideas to editors, or editors assign us articles. We then begin writing, submit it for editing, and revise. It is then scheduled for a publication date and time.

If we want to write about a topic of our choice, or there are no topics suggested by our editors, then we have to find our own things to write about. It is important to write about relevant, and popular topics, in order to attract more readers. In order to do this I need to use various methods of news aggregation. The main thing that I use for this is Reddit, which is an online discussion forum. The best thing about reddit for sports is that it shows what is viral or trending in different leagues. Articles tend to be more attractive to viewers if the topics are popular and trending at the current moment. Reddit forums are all posted and made by actual sports fans, so those topics are the perfect ones to write about. Another thing that is useful is Twitter. I have made an effort to follow as many sports accounts that I can. Therefore, whenever there is a major, or even minor piece of news, it will come straight to the top of my Twitter feed. This again, will make the article relevant and up to date. The same applies with Feedly, except I get major headlines from Sports Websites such as ESPN and Bleacher Report

I started this month off by writing an article detailing potential NBA trade packages for Paul George from the LA Clippers. My next one gave an offseason plan for the Denver Nuggets, in order to ensure that they challenge for the championship next year. Since the NBA season is now completed, the articles at the current moment will focus more on the offseason and player movement during this period.

The articles that I write need to be relevant in order for people to want to read them. For example, this article on trading Paul George came in the midst of several trade rumor’s surrounding him.

The next article that I chose to write was a 2021 NBA Mock Draft. The Draft is something that I have always enjoyed, but this was an extremely long and frustrating article to write. Finding statistics, pictures, and videos for each players while abiding to copyright rules was a challenge. In the end, I was forced to use Twitter mixtapes of the players due to potential copyright infringements if I used Google Images. My first draft has now been submitted for editing.

My first draft of the 2021 Mock in WordPress

The mock that I made for the 2020 Draft was published weeks ago. However, it recently got promoted to the header of the website. This means that when someone goes to the homepage of our website, the 2020 Mock will be the first thing that they see. It is in a preview format, so viewers can click ‘read more’ in order to see the full article.

The experience has been extremely beneficial for me so far. The team at Sideline have helped me a good amount with identifying my writing strengths, as well as identifying areas for me to improve upon. For me, that was making sure my articles are more concise, and capturing the readers attention in the very first paragraph using a lede.

LO2 Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process

It has now been around 5 months of working with Sideline, and I hope to continue writing for them. My goal is to get my articles to get more reads, which can be done by writing about relevant and interesting topics.

LO4 Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences