The mission of KUJH sports
With our primary focus on education we serve students who are in journalism intereasted in sports reporting by providing them with the opportunity to learn how to balance between reporting and commentary while gaining real world experience working alongside professional media at athletic events. Education is not the only thing we serve, but we need to not lose sight of that focus. The sports journalism students will serve a psychographical audience consisting of the international KU sports family.
One of the best things about the net is that EVERYTHING is there. You name it, you can find it. So when it comes to sports coverage, people expect that we cover everything. And in order for the KUJH-TV web site to become a legitimate news source, we ultimately should cover both revenue and non-revenue sports.
Coverage means stats, schedules, game previews, athlete profiles and rivalries. Sports online gives anyone, especially fans, a way to get all the information about their favorite team.
We could write pages upon pages about everything that is possible with sports online. We could format the schedule to bring up pictures of the stadium where the game is happening, what time it airs on what channel; we could have a clickable schedule to see archived video of each game. But then we need to be realistic about what we can do with sports online.
We don't have a full-time staff of paid reporters covering sports like Kusports.com, but we do have students eager to get experience. Based on time and the number of people we have available, sticking with on-campus sports is realistic for the next several semesters. Even covering all the KU athletics will be a challenge at the beginning, so we'd be wise to use interaction by getting submissions from parents, coaches and athletes to supplement our news stories.
Having Rylan Howe as our photographer, dedicated specifically to the web site, we will have high-quality images on a consistent basis to post online. This will eliminate the hassle of finding someone from the Kansan to take photos or convincing KUJH-TV reporters to get still shots.
Realistically, nothing is going to change much next year, but with everyone officially enrolled in a class, we can have more control over what students are covering. Sports reporting will be more organized and we'll have more people available to cover more sports.
Is it really necessary to blog about sports events every day? We know Staci really likes the idea. At the risk of being hated by future sports students, blogging could attract a lot of eyes as part of an online sports presence at KUJH-TV. Sports columns in the Kansan and other newspapers are well-read, so a web version of SportsTalk via blogging would probably be a big hit. We'd just have to single out a sports nerd to make the time.
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