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Journalism students go for gold with Olympic parade coverage

Journalism students abandoned their classroom to cover the homecoming parade for Great Britain’s Olympic heroes.

More than 35 students at Manchester Metropolitan University were involved in the coverage, which included an exclusive interview with Paralympic gold medal-winning sprinter and cyclist Kadeena Cox.

Students live blogged direct to the journalism department’s website Northern Quota, produced picture galleries, interactive Google maps, curated content using Storify, and took a raft of video clips and images throughout the afternoon.

Student reporters were sent out in groups and positioned at strategic points along the parade route, with an editorial team based back at the department’s newsroom co-ordinating coverage and promoting content though social media.

From left: MMU students Verity Carson, Hannah Phillips and Alicia Hattersley

From left: MMU students Verity Carson, Hannah Phillips and Alicia Hattersley covering the parade

Journalism tutor Dave Porter said: “This was a unique opportunity right on our doorstep which was too good an opportunity to miss. MMU students were the only Manchester-based journalism students to take advantage of what proved to be a huge news story and a unique reporting experience for them.

“We spent quite some time planning how to report the event, and our third year students formed the backbone of the reporting team. Students specialising in sports journalism manned the newsdesk and co-ordinated coverage and made sure our content was given the best push through social media.

“We interviewed gold medal Paralympian Kadeena Cox, who is an MMU Sports Scholar, on board one of the parade buses which was a great coup for the students – especially as Kadeena then passed her phone round the bus so we could interview others heroes such as Helen Scott.

“It was a long day for the students but the tutors were really proud of the coverage they produced – and a great pat on the back for students was the number of retweets they got and requests from people to use our images.”

Third year journalism student Amy Holmes added: “It was an amazing event for me to experience, especially with the live blogging part. It was great being out there and having to think on your feet.

“Now I feel confident with this kind of reporting I can’t wait for the nest time I get to live blog.”