After 2 years of training in journalism, the Nice School of Journalism has established a third-year specialization entirely dedicated to sports and its techniques: Print Press, Radio, TV, and Internet, live commentary, live remote broadcasts, and match reports.
Sports journalism is constantly evolving; today, what the world of journalism needs are multi-platform professionals to meet the demands of editorial offices, but also and especially, cultured and keen young people who are passionate about sports and also about the French language.
For this, the leadership team at Nouvelles has enlisted the advice of major figures in journalism to design our pedagogy: Roland Faure, Jacques Marchand, and Jacques Ferrand, with Laurent Paganelli agreeing to sponsor the first cohort of Sports Journalists from EDJ.
The young journalists are “coached” by leading professionals who teach them the ins and outs of the profession daily: Jean-Marc Michel, Jean-Louis Filc, Stéphane Tardy, Thierry Apparu, and Pierre Louis Castelli.
This year, 15 students had their end-of-year internships at the editorial offices of L’Equipe.fr, Canal+, OM TV, Actufoot, Midi Olympique, Sports.fr, as well as the sports editorial offices of Nice-Matin, Le Progrès, and La Dépêche du Midi.
Visit the EDJ Sports website: https://www.ecoledujournalismesportif.com/
—
Interview with Marie Boselli
Director of the Nouvelles School of Journalism
Marie Boselli, this Saturday you are inaugurating the new sports section of your journalism school. How was this first year?
It went very well; this year we had 15 very talented young sports journalists. They worked hard, made significant progress, and gained a wealth of sports culture. They are now heading to national editorial offices, ready and operational!
How did the idea to establish this specialized section in the world of sports come about?
It’s the first sports journalism training in France! Increasingly, students (about 30% of our enrolment, with more and more women) want to become sports journalists, so there was a demand. Meanwhile, we also have partnerships with Canal+, L’Equipe.fr, L’Equipe TV, Eurosports, Sportever, sports.fr, and all the sports services of regional daily newspapers, televisions, radios… The offer is there.
We just needed to find the best teachers, all of whom are sports journalists, such as Thierry Apparu, editor-in-chief of the press center in Monaco, Jean-Louis Filc, editor-in-chief at RMC, Stéphane Tardy, former Director of sports services at Nice-Matin, Jean-Marc Michel, editing manager at France 3, president of the Union of Sports Journalists in France… Other teachers are academics with doctorates in sports law or sports marketing.
With teachers of this caliber and good students, we have succeeded!
What are the fundamentals of this year of specialization?
The Sports Journalist is not just any journalist; he is a specialist!
Knowing and loving sports are not enough. One may be sportive, but that doesn’t automatically qualify one as a sports journalist. He is not only an active spectator of events but must also know how to analyze, comment, transmit information and results, all while managing urgency.
Today, France has more than 3,500 sports journalists (out of 60,000 journalists in activity). The future is promising: for Print Press alone, there are 120 specialized titles. Regional Daily Press is a major consumer of Sports Journalists, and the internet is increasingly important. Sports television channels have multiplied, particularly with the advent of satellite, cable, and the internet. The share of sports in the media landscape is growing. As for radios, even the smallest ones choose to give significant space to sports shows and match broadcasts.
All these media are demanding and wish to host journalists who are perfectly trained in the profession. Not only must you know the basic journalistic techniques, but you also must have specific knowledge. Your culture must therefore be all-encompassing: team sports (football, rugby, basketball, volleyball, handball, etc.), as well as athletics, motorsports, tennis, golf, extreme sports, combat sports. Each discipline requires its own vocabulary and demands skills to comment on a match or an event live.
Is online sports journalism very prominent, and do you have any projects in this sector?
We post a sports newspaper online each week: “sports journalist,” which you can read on the site ecoledujournalismesportif.com and on ecoledujournalisme.com. Additionally, we have found a large number of online editorial offices that take our students for internships, with assignments to follow. These are students known as multi-platform, capable of writing, broadcasting radio and television on the net!
Finally, what advice would you give to a young person wishing to pursue a career in sports journalism?
To be above all passionate, interested in all sports, and most importantly, to sign up at EDJ to benefit from solid training and our networks!
