NEWS

Tech sports journalist receives internship via social media

Jan 11, 2011 | Liberal Arts

In a social media-saturated society, one Louisiana Tech student has found a way to use Twitter to gain an internship.
Sarah Brown, the sports editor of Tech’s student-run newspaper, The Tech Talk, is one of the Tweeters behind http://twitter.com/techtalksports and has her own personal Twitter. A Boston media blog, Boston Sports Then and Now (http://boston.sportsthenandnow.com/), read her personal Tweets and offered her an internship.
“I follow a lot of Boston people, and I stumbled across them,” Brown, a junior journalism major from Madisonville, said. “They followed me back, and one night during a football game, I mentioned I wanted to move up north and cover Boston sports. They messaged me their contact information and asked me to write for their site.”
Her first blog, http://boston.sportsthenandnow.com/2011/01/03/being-a-boston-sports-fan-on-the-bayou/, discussed her experiences of being a New England Patriots fan in Saints territory, and she plans on discussing New York Jets head coach Rex Ryan in her next post later this week.
“We teach our students to use social media and multimedia to complement their writing, and they have been effective in generating audience interest,” Judith Roberts, a journalism instructor who teaches a sports writing class, said. “Sarah gaining an internship via Twitter is just one example of how social media is changing our society and how we receive our news content.”
Boston Sports Then and Now was named a “Site We Like” by ESPN’s Sportsnation.