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By James Toney, Managing Editor
It’s hard to disagree with this advice from the Sports Journalists’ Association aimed at those trying to break into one of the most competitive reporting fields.
IN THE THICK OF IT: Sports journalists - including reporters from News Associates' sports services Sportsbeat - in action during the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing (Getty Images)
SJA secretary Steven Downes receives countless emails, begging for assistance.
“The insistent naïveté of some of our correspondents is, frankly astonishing in its barefaced cheek,” he writes.
"You might even want to volunteer for some work on the school magazine/newspaper. You might want to seek work experience placings with a local newspaper or hospital radio station during the summer holidays. You need to demonstrate that you have gone out and done something to underline your ambition.
"Writing match reports at this stage is fine, but, as Evelyn Waugh once put it, up to a point, Lord Copper. You actually just need to write and write and write - and your course work ought to demand that you do plenty of that. Think of every essay as a training session for your first live match report.
"Other than that, you should read, outside your coursework, as much as possible. Fiction and non-fiction. Books on journalism and works of complete fantasy."
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