Sports Journalism

With having an established newspaper, a variety of athletics going on, and a well-equipped Communication Arts department that has all the production necessities, why doesn’t Framingham State University offer Sports Journalism and Production core classes that specializes in covering the school’s athletic teams and events?

As a Communication Arts major who is graduating in the spring, I have seen what this department has to offer and what it could offer.  I have personally taking a production class and have thoroughly enjoyed it, as it has given me the chance to see the capabilities of the studio on campus. The studio is definitely capable of offering a nice set up for a sports talk show, but this school has no interest in doing that as they are more into performing arts.

This isn’t the only problem when talking about the lack of a Sports Journalism and Production class being offered here. The two main production professors,  Professor Robert Johnson and Professor Bowen, primarily focus on using the studio just for performing arts. Both of these professors are great teachers as I have had both of them in my journey to get my Bachelor’s Degree, but only are useful for students who are looking to pursue a career in communication performing arts .  As my time winds down at Framingham I really wish they would offer any type of Sports Production  and Jorunalism class for various reasons.

One reason is because it would get even more high school graduates and transfer students to apply here if they were looking to pursue a sports journalism or production concentration. If Framingham offered the basic classes this would allow kids to pursue a a sports journalism degree at a cheaper price as they could take their core classes here and transfer to a more prestigious sports journalism school, such as Syracuse or Emerson. The second reason is that this would spread the word and expand the knowledge of the Framingham State Athletics on and off campus as the students would have to produce video segments highlighting teams and game highlights. Right now the only publicity the sports team receives are on fsurams.com and the Gate Post. Having two well established media sources is a good start but adding a consistent video segment would help extend the knowledge of the Rams success more obtainable to the public.

I proposed this concentration of Communication Arts because now a days a lot of the Massachusetts State schools are starting to offer more and more majors. Framingham recently picked up Criminal Justice as the newest major and that attracted many new kids because it is one of the few state schools to offer. So why not add a concentration that no other state school offers and attract even more students?

If Framingham State University were to add this class to it's program, not much more would need to be added. They already have a studio and the right equipment for a student to produce a sports show here on campus. The school would have to hire a person who has been in the industry as they would able to relate to the student and teach them from personal experience.  In closing, this is a concentration that I would really like to see Framingham add but with the constant focus on the integral parts of the university such as construction and renovation of the school I do not see this happening in the near future.