How to report sports news

By Asa Schuster

"Paul Zalunardo currently covers both local and national soccer news for the Illawarra Mercury, reporting on Wollongong Wolves matches in the National Soccer League and local lawn bowls throughout the year.

Zalunardo's knowledge in soccer gives him the edge in his job. However, when reporting on sports he is not familiar with, he advises novice reporters to "be honest and straight-up with them and say, I don't know a lot about this sport, you might have to help me out a little bit at first".

"Most people you say that to are 100% okay with it, because the last thing they want is people to make out that they know what's going on. If they don't then it shows up in your work, which reflects negatively on yourself. It looks bad in the paper, also it's not good for that sport."

Zalunardo believes that learning as much you can about unfamiliar sports and rules is vital for sports writing, but it can also be very difficult.
"It's very specialised and with every different sport, there are terms that are unique to one sport or another."
"As time goes on, when it's your job, it's basically our responsibility to learn about these things if you're going to write about them."

So although it may be difficult to report sports which you may not feel as comfortable writing, "you've still got to put the same amount of professionalism into it because every story you do is in the paper. It has your name on it."
"The last thing you want is for things to sort of reflect badly on yourself and who you work for, so you've got to treat every story with the same level of responsibility."

Zalunardo believes reviewing your work and re-reading stories in the paper is one of the best ways to improve your writing skill and style.
"Probably the most important thing to do is to read your story again the next day. Look at it and if I had more time, what would I have done differently, and maybe next time when you're in that situation, you'll remember one of those things."
"No matter how much time you've got, you always want that extra five minutes to read it over again and make sure a few little details are right."

Reporting the Wollongong Wolves matches involves tight deadlines, especially games played on Friday nights which usually leaves Zalunardo only 40 minutes after the game to submit his article. This also involves attending the post-game press conference.
Although he has reported in these circumstances many times, he says "it's stressful every time".
Handling deadlines is "one of the main skills that you learn, when you actually start working, you get more experience, you find you get use to it better.

"As long as there's a good sort of flow of communication between yourself and the sub-editors, then you know I got till this amount of time and I've gotta do this much"
"As long as it's not unreasonable, you can always explain things and work together to make sure things are okay."

Zalunardo says writing sports' leads can become "repetitive and boring". He looks for small or hidden details out of the ordinary to personalise the angle of the lead.
"Sometimes it's a very easy thing to fall into, if you're not aware of not thinking about trying to find that little bit different angle in your story, because teams play every week and they either win or they lose."

Zalunardo's final advice to aspiring journalists: "When you get opportunities to do things, just do them as well as you can. Don't be afraid to ask people for help, but then on the other hand don't pester them too much because they've got their own work to do."

"Basically show that you're committed and willing to have a go, even though you don't get paid, treat it like you're working there, show that you're willing to be professional."