How much points do I need to obtain to become a

fulhamfanincork

How many points do I need to obtain to become a sports journalist? cheers.

fionated7

im not sure, u might have to study journalism and then branch out into the sports field???
check qualifax.ie and they should be able to tell u

fulhamfanincork

fionated7 wrote:

im not sure, u might have to study journalism and then branch out into the sports field???
check qualifax.ie and they should be able to tell u

cheers.

Is there an actual course in sports journalism? If not, 0 is the answer!

fulhamfanincork

so i would have to do a jounalism course and integrate it into sports journalism?

SuperHans

If you REALLY know that you want to be a journalist, college is a waste of time. Get out there and start writing!

fulhamfanincork

SuperHans wrote:

If you REALLY know that you want to be a journalist, college is a waste of time. Get out there and start writing!

why are you a journalist or have experience?

Steve01

fulhamfanincork wrote:

How many points do I need to obtain to become a sports journalist?

Points? Its luck you need, and shítloads of it

fulhamfanincork

Steve01 wrote:

Points? Its luck you need, and shítloads of it

can you go into more detail mate?

cson

Basically your top sports journalists - Vincent Hogan, Henry Winter, James Lawton didn't do a sports journalist course per sé. They got into it through different ways.

You could do the journalism course in DCU which is 450 but afaik theres not a lot of jobs flying around in journalism. You need luck to actually get writing somewhere, then you need more luck to get to a decent standard and you need a lot of ability. Chances are you won't make a great living out of it.

Start writing for your local newspaper, they're mostly voluntary and if you go to say, local GAA matches and write up reports on them and send them in, if they're good quality, they'll get printed.

PurpleFistMixer

As someone told me once, possibly (as in almost certainly) during my work experience in the Irish Times, a degree in something else is generally more useful. It's all well and good knowing how to write, but if you don't know anything to write about it isn't much good.

That said I'm sure a degree in journalism wouldn't damage your chances at all.

cson

Yep, you'll find that the top sports journo's don't actually have a degree in journalism but in something else. Put it to you this way, if Ian O'Doherty can get a regular column in Irelands biggest paper then theres hope for all of us.

Jello

DCU and DIT both offer Journalism afaik.

EDIT: Yeah just checked - points are around the 460 mark in DCU and 430 in DIT - where the course is 'Journalism with a language'.

genericgoon

You could always become a famous sports personality and become a journalist when you retire. This is the harder and longer way though :P

Attractive Nun

Journalism is a difficult field in which to establish yourself, and the bad news is that sports journalism (probably along with music journalism) is perhaps the most difficult subset of journalism in which to find a job. However, that's no reason not to go for it. My advice would be certainly to try obtain a good degree - apparently an honours degree is more or less a prerequisite for many employers, though I don't exactly know how true this is. As for what degree, in Ireland DIT and DCU, as well as some of the private colleges, are really your only options for a straightforward journalism degree. Of course, there's always the option of doing a course in something like English or even sport science and going on to do a masters in journalism (DCU offer such a course, as do many foreign universities - the journalism school at the City of London university is amongst the most well regarded in the world, for example). The obvious point here is that there is no clearcut path into sports journalism, but third level qualifications are definitely a good idea.

Beyond that, it's even more important that you just start writing. Write for your college paper, your local paper, a sports website - maybe even start a blog. Entry into sports journalism will be competitive, and solid journalistic experience will do your CV as much good as a II.1 degree, probably. I'd also imagine it would be a good idea to play sports (if you don't already) and take an interest in as many sports as you can - football, GAA, rugby, golf, horseracing, boxing - anything that's in any way popular in this country.

I'd recommend, too, that you have some sort of backup. If you do an outright journalism degree, it would be helpful if you were comfortable starting out doing basic reporting of local politics or whatever, because as I say sports journalism is a very specific career. If you do some arts degree, then you'll have plenty of options.

Good luck anyway!