Centennial College Sports Journalism Students Cover Tokyo 2020 Summer Paralympic Games

Sports Journalism students from Centennial College have the opportunity of a lifetime to gain real experience in their field.

Canadians can continue to cheer for Team Canada when the Tokyo 2020 Summer Paralympic Games open August 24.

Sports journalism students work alongside local media to cover Paralympic Games

To help tell the stories of Team Canada's athletes, 28 students from the post-graduate Sports Journalism program at Centennial College will be tracking Canada's Paralympians and contributing content to multiple platforms, including the Toronto Observer. The students will be split between broadcast and digital journalism.

Their internet television show will feature some of the action at the Paralympics, including highlights and features, using the broadcast facilities at Centennial's Story Arts Centre in East York. It will appear on the program's YouTube channel and the Toronto Observer website. The other group will focus on digital journalism, including stories, photos, social media, podcasts, standups and more.

The benefits of experiential learning

"We will be following the lead of most professional media outlets by covering the Paralympics from home, rather than being there, as had been our plan," says Malcolm Kelly, founder and coordinator of the Sports Journalism program. Five years ago a group of Centennial students travelled to Brazil to cover the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games live from the Olympic venues.

"Our program's long-held belief in experiential learning continues to take extra steps, including our Paralympics project," says Kelly. "When you bring students out of the classroom and put them in a situation where they cover a real event, it speeds up the learning process tremendously."

History of the Paralympic Games

The Paralympics, launched in the United Kingdom in 1948 as the Stoke-Mandeville Games, brings together thousands of world-class athletes from around the globe every four years to compete in events ranging from swimming to wheelchair basketball and rugby, cycling and more.

History of Centennial’s sports journalism program

"We dedicated our sports journalism program to Parasports back in 2015, and it has been an honour to cover these tremendous athletes and tell their stories," says Kelly.

Centennial's unique Sports Journalism post-graduate program delivers an intense year of study that immerses students in the fast-paced sports media industry. Centennial attracts some of the best sports media practitioners to teach in the comprehensive program, which began in 2009. The college offers three other journalism programs: a three-year undergraduate program, a two-year fast-track program and a joint program with the University of Toronto Scarborough.