UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Five Penn State students covering the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London as part of an exclusive agreement with the U.S. Olympic Committee will share information and insights about their trip, as well as samples of their work and stories about Penn State Olympians, as part of a blog that will be maintained throughout the Games.
The blog -- available at http://sportsjourn.psu.edu online -- will be updated regularly by the students with additional contributions from Malcolm Moran, the Knight Chair in Sports Journalism and Society who serves as director of the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism.
A agreement between the Curley Center and the USOC made the exclusive opportunity possible for the students.
Students covering the games are:
-- Virginia Harrison, 24, from Flourtown, Pa., a graduate student pursing a master’s degree in media studies who earned undergraduate degrees in journalism and history from Penn State in 2008;
-- Jeffrey Lowe, 20, from Cedar Park, Texas, a junior broadcast journalism major;
-- Emily Kaplan, 20, from Montclair, N.J., a junior journalism major;
-- Christine Newby, 21, from Pittsburgh, a senior broadcast journalism major; and
-- Audrey Snyder, 22, from Downingtown, Pa., a senior completing majors in journalism and secondary education/English.
Competitions at the Summer Olympics are scheduled to run from July 27 through Aug. 12, and the Penn Staters will be on site in London throughout the event.
The group will provide as many as five stories per day that will appear in "USA Daily," which is distributed to media members, sponsors, members of the U.S. delegation for the Games and representatives from nongovernmental bodies. The students will write stories to be posted at USOCPressBox online as well.
The students will concentrate on feature material to supplement articles written by the USOC staff members. In addition, some of the students hope to find time to complete assignments for other news organizations.
The coverage of the Summer Olympics provides the latest example of the Curley Center’s commitment to providing unrivaled opportunities for its top students, including the NCAA men’s basketball Final Four and the Bowl Championship Series championship game.
Along with exploring issues and trends in sports journalism through instruction, outreach, programming and research, the Curley Center places an emphasis on internships -- dozens of communications students complete sports-related internships every year -- and facilitating professional opportunities.
All efforts of the Curley Center, established in 2003, build on an undergraduate curricular emphasis that includes courses in sports writing, sports broadcasting, sports information, sports, media and society, and sports and public policy, which is cross-listed with the Penn State Dickinson School of Law.