In this session, the first one of the weekend for me, I was a little nervous. Covering for our sports editor, I chose to attend this session on nine ways to improve your sports section, which is a section I would like to work on.

Here is what I took away from the session:

• Start thinking like a daily: With online capabilities, it is possible to work our sports section as a daily, even if it is online. With a daily method online, we can use our weekly publication as a more magazine and feature outlet that takes sports stories more in depth.
• Need at least 2 versions of every game: The first version goes online within 30-60 minutes of the final buzzer. Another version goes up online with quotes and more detail, then in print, cover the game and players in depth.
• Establish beats: Each sport on campus needs to have a reporter assigned to it. Talk to the coach weekly or monthly to establish a good relationship.
• Don’t be afraid to try something different: Research and look at other newspapers to see how they are handling the sports section and take inspiration from that. “If you’re going to fail, fail big.”
• Rolling deadlines: Be designing pages throughout the week, don’t wait until the last minute to design sports feature stories and pages.

Overall, I thought this was a great session. Coming from a news background with very little sports experience (or interest), I think these tips will help improve our sports section.

–Claire