Student Journalists Head to Paris Olympics

Posted on May 2, 2024

In Room 67 of Carroll Hall, students in the Hussman School of Journalism and Media sat in front of a bank of computer screens while scribbling notes as they watched the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. They had hoped to travel to Tokyo to cover the games just as classes had in previous years. But because of the spreading COVID pandemic, officials, for the first time in Olympic history, did not grant game access to any spectators. Only a few journalists were allowed into the arenas.

So the students did the next best thing — sit in the basement of the journalism school building for two weeks covering the games taking place about 7,000 miles away.

This summer, however, 25 Hussman students are heading to Paris for two weeks to report on the 2024 games. The trip is part of the summer course MEJO390: Paris Olympics, giving student journalists the chance to sharpen their reporting skills by covering one of the most widely watched events in the world.

Charlie Tuggle, the John H. Stembler Jr. Distinguished Professor in charge of the program, said the group is a mix of students from all over the country, with a variety of expertise. Some will spend their time in a broadcast stall interviewing competitors immediately after an event, and others will chase the perfect picture or sound bite.

Students applied at the beginning of the spring semester to go to Paris, and professors selected the two dozen who would make the trip. A few recent journalism alumni will accompany students. Students will share the Olympic experience with viewers watching in the states — and specifically, those in North Carolina.

About 200 Olympic athletes have a connection to North Carolina. The class will cover the athletes’ events and progress at the games and their connections to the state and how their home communities are celebrating.

Twenty students are paired with local North Carolina news outlets to help produce the coverage. Five students were hired by the Olympic News Service, operated by the International Olympic Committee, as junior reporters.

Twenty students are paired with local North Carolina news outlets to help produce the coverage. Based on the student’s skill set and journalistic specialty — which includes broadcast, social media and other concentrations — Tuggle paired them with the newsroom that would be the best fit. Each student is expected to try his or her hand at different media in order to be immersed in a full experience.

Each student was asked to contact about 10 athletes with North Carolina connections before going to Paris. Establishing relationships early will give the young journalists better access to the athletes in the future and emphasize the importance of N.C. media.

“We care about our athletes — our state of North Carolina athletes — even those who go to Duke,” Tuggle said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re not the gold medal winner, you’re an Olympian. That’s a big deal. It’s a North Carolina thing going on over there in Paris, and we want to send that message to the statewide media.”

Five students in the class were hired by the Olympic News Service, operated by the International Olympic Committee, as junior reporters. They’ll produce stories about different aspects of the games relative to North Carolina over the course of the two weeks in France.

ONS worked with Hussman when UNC brought groups of students to Beijing in 2008 and Rio de Janeiro in 2016. The organization doesn’t typically approach collegiate journalism programs asking for students but was impressed by UNC’s partnership work with them in previous games. Tuggle said Hussman will be the only institution to send a group of junior reporters for the ONS in 2024, but other colleges are sending students to cover aspects of the games.

It costs a lot to send the students to Paris. Flights, housing fees, food and other expenses total about $10,000 per person. Many of the students have applied for scholarships through the school, received donor funding and are fundraising on their own to pay for the trip.

First-year student Anna Laible, from Lehighton, Pennsylvania, grew up watching the Olympics and said it has been a career dream of hers to cover the games as a sports journalist. When she was deciding which college to attend last year, UNC’s Olympics journalism class influenced her decision.

“Throughout the fall, my goal was to just show what I was capable of since I was only a freshman,” Laible said. She worked with Sports Xtra, a weekly sports broadcast produced by Carolina students, and The Daily Tar Heel and landed a job with Go Heels Productions. “Through my work with those three outlets, that was really my mindset,” she said. “I worked as hard as I can to show what I was capable of.”

Sophomore Maya Waid from Harrisonburg, Virginia, will work with Laible to report for The Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer. Journalists covering the Olympics “are top tier people from around the world,” Waid said. “Being able to collaborate with those people and especially learn from journalists who have way more experience than we do, I think is what I’m looking forward to.”

The course will also give students the skills of building relationships with sources, professional development and understanding the social norms of a foreign culture. Some alumni and journalists visited the class in the months prior to the games to offer helpful advice.

“I think it’s a really good opportunity for people who are still young and have semesters left with Hussman to have this learning opportunity,” Waid said, “and then bring those experiences and knowledge back to UNC.”

— Liv Reilly