Online Master of Arts
Sports Journalism
Entering a career in sports journalism is most often the combination of two passions: a fierce love of athletics and the desire to create stories for the news media. Increasingly, today’s sports journalists need to not only be skilled in traditional news reporting but also in a wide variety of digital competencies, including social media storytelling, podcasts, and mobile experiences to compete in this fast-paced, 24/7 environment. It’s an exciting and important time in sports journalism. Fans and non-fans alike are paying attention, as sports tackle the topics shaping larger conversations of identity and equality.
In St. Bonaventure University’s (SBU) online Master of Arts in Sports Journalism, you will learn all the skills necessary to become a modern-day sports journalist. This knowledge of the latest methods in news gathering will allow you to develop original stories for traditional and digital media, based on the highest journalistic standards. Our sports journalism master’s degree was built leveraging the insights from our successful journalism alumni, who hold top positions at ESPN, New York Post, USA Today, and other major media sources, to ensure you’ll learn all the skills critical to success in this field.
Through the sports journalism master’s program, you’ll learn how to:
- Explain the nuances of sports, race/ethnicity, gender, and the role of the journalist in a diverse sports media landscape
- Follow the best practices of journalistic excellence and ethics to vigorously apply these standards to new forms of media in pursuit of truth, accuracy, fairness, and diversity
- Demonstrate entrepreneurial approaches and envision future business models for sports media
- Exhibit culturally competent interviewing skills
- Produce podcasts and digital interviews
- Develop, research, and execute a major sports journalism project
This is the foundational course in sports journalism. Students will contextualize the role of sports journalism in our rapidly changing society and media landscape. There will be a focus on how diverse audiences interact with sports and how sports journalists cover issues of race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual misconduct and other contemporary issues. The course also covers the forces affecting change in the industry and how flexibility, agility and adaptability are crucial for sports journalists and open up many career possibilities.
This course will examine the ethical issues journalists face doing their job and how that comports with the highest ideals of the profession. The intersection of ethics and law and major principles of media law will be discussed including prior restraint, privacy, libel and copyright. How journalists can use public records is also a focus.
This is a practical course about covering sporting events and issues. There will be significant focus on developing sources, pitching stories, interviewing athletes, and working with media relations staffs. Students should become adept at reporting digital sports stories.
This course will provide an in-depth study of sports media as a business. Topics include the business of media, business of sports and how those manifest in and affect sports media and journalism. Sports analytics, entrepreneurship, organization culture, contracts and freelancing are also discussed.
This course focuses on in-depth interviewing for sports. Students will conduct thorough journalistic research, develop interviewing skills for news and features and will present their work in podcasts and other digital platforms.
