Sports journalism college students at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication are receiving alternatives that {many professional} sports activities reporters envy.

Throughout the 12 months, college students enrolled within the Cronkite News Phoenix Sports Bureau present each day protection of the Valley’s 5 main skilled sports activities groups. However, since February, they’ve made the leap to the nationwide stage, reporting on a few of the nation’s largest sporting occasions occurring proper of their yard. The college students have lined Super Bowl week in Las Vegas, the PGA Tour’s WM Phoenix Open, and Major League Baseball’s Cactus League spring coaching. They are additionally making ready to cowl the NCAA Men’s Final Four subsequent month in Glendale.

The Cronkite News Phoenix Sports Bureau is likely one of the faculty’s signature immersive capstone experiences, serving as a multiplatform newsroom that permits college students to cowl main sporting occasions in Phoenix and different components of the nation. Students’ work has been printed by main metropolitan media organizations and nationwide information shops resembling MLB.com, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Bay Area News Group and Sports Illustrated. Cronkite college students have lined the earlier two Super Bowls in Glendale and Los Angeles, the World Series final fall and have reported on Cactus League spring training since 2011. 

Cronkite scholar Lauren Avenatti lined Super Bowl Opening Night final month, which included the primary alternative for the media to interview gamers and coaches. 

“The fact that I was able to go to the Super Bowl at 21 years old is just absolutely mind-blowing,” Avenatti stated. “If you told me four years ago that I would have gone and was able to meet some of the greatest players of our generation, I wouldn’t have believed you. That was all thanks to Cronkite.”

Avenatti put collectively a broadcast package on San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy, who’s from Queen Creek and performed highschool soccer in Gilbert. 

“I was able to talk to his coaches, former high school coaches, personal quarterback coaches and really talk to them about the person he was,” she stated. “They told me he changed their lives, he changed the school’s culture and he was an incredible human being.” 

During the identical week Avenatti traveled to Las Vegas, Ethan Tuttle and different Cronkite college students stayed within the Valley to report on the WM Phoenix Open, one of the vital standard golf tournaments on the earth.

Tuttle credited Cronkite News Phoenix Sports Bureau Professor of Practice Gail Rhodes and different school with offering beneficial suggestions to assist him advance his expertise.

“She’s basically the person I report to, and she helps me with script writing and gives me video critiques. So being able to get in-person feedback pretty much whenever I want is something that’s really special and has helped me elevate my craft,” he stated. 

Student Aaron Schmidt is covering spring training for the second straight 12 months.

“Talking to players, talking to managers … It’s really been a good experience for me because I’ve been learning how to interview properly and get better with approaching players, and enhancing my writing skills all around,” he stated. 

Schmidt, who needs to cowl baseball as a beat author, values his courses on the Cronkite School as a result of they’ve ready him for experiences like spring coaching. 

Students within the bureau are actually making ready for the Final Four by following groups that might advance deep into the match and looking for story concepts. 

Cronkite News Phoenix Sports Bureau Director Paola Boivin stated it’s “highly unusual” for faculty college students to cowl these main sporting occasions so early of their careers. But that’s what differentiates Cronkite from different journalism colleges.

“I often run into veteran sports writers who tell me our reporters are covering things they have yet to cover,” Boivin stated. “I think that makes our journalism school so unique. We’re right in the middle of all the major professional sports leagues and two Power Five universities.”