Coming up on what used to be the Day of Youth in former Yugoslavia is a guest lecture your correspondent will offer to students enrolled in a course on Specialized (Sports) Journalism at the University of Ljubljana, his alma mater.
The lecture will focus on the role journalism has in sports. Your correspondent is a proponent of the concept of sports journalism as “journalism about sports,” meaning there is no reason to waive fundamental professional principles when reporting about sports.
The topics covered in the meeting will include several issues of global relevance that will be applied to the Slovenian context. Among them will be the use of performance-enhancing drugs: Excellent journalistic work will be exemplified with a reference to Hajo Seppelt’s work at ARD/WDR. Match-fixing will be touched on with references to the work of Declan Hill and a local case study.
After introducing global topics we will switch to local sports and use Jim Crawford’s (www.jimcrawf.com) feature, Shooting for Seven, as an example of a compelling story about youth sport that is sure to attract interest of local audiences. Proud to have had the opportunity to interact with Jim in an instructor-student capacity!
Finally, we will “localize” the discussion and controversies surrounding mega-events by discussing some findings on popular attitude, willingness to pay, and international media coverage of the European Basketball Championship for men hosted by Slovenia in 2013. A fun class activity is also planned!
The talkative guest is likely to run out of time before being able to cover all topics. Nonetheless, he will surely do his best and hope to satisfy student curiosity!
Stay tuned for more activities coming up soon!