I’ve been lucky enough to work as a journalist in some capacity in each year since finishing school in 2019, which has allowed me to improve and diversify my skills over time.
In 2020 I worked throughout the year at The Monaro Post, the local weekly newspaper in Cooma, as a cadet journalist mostly covering sports and rural news. I also worked on and had material published in the magazines we published; The Snowpost, Your Coastal Life, Your Farm and Innovation, and took my own photos while out and about.
At University I had a handful of pieces published through our news platform UOWTV. My profile can be found here.
While in Wollongong I worked the Illawarra Rugby League media team and had pieces published weekly during the 2022 and 2023 seasons. I would also create graphics and highlights videos for our weekly newsletter and to support pieces on the IRL website. Below are examples of people and footy led stories, with the last one featuring some multimedia I put together using Clipchamp.
https://illawarrarugbyleague.com.au/mums-the-word-for-kaarla
https://illawarrarugbyleague.com.au/tigers-tower-of-strength-to-play-250th-game
https://illawarrarugbyleague.com.au/high-stakes-for-steelers-as-apps-returns
This also led to covering matches played in for New South Wales Rugby League, attending games and filing copy within an hour of the match finishing. I also had a piece published in the local metropolitan daily newspaper The Illawarra Mercury. This, and other work is linked below.
Collegians secure premiership in Illawarra Cup thriller
Recap | The Knock-On Effect NSW Cup Round 19 (Raiders vs Dragons)
An excerpt of my first feature When the Windies Came to Town appeared in the Wangaratta Chronicle, and is linked below.
I was also selected to go on a New Colombo Plan trip to Fiji and Vanuatu in August-September of 2023 along with one other student from Journalism and seven from Social Work, as well as a Social Work professor. We produced a four-episode podcast series titled Talanoa – Stories from the South Pacific. I worked on an episode on the rise of females in sport and sports media in Fiji,
… and on the Ni-Vanuatu women who support their people in times of crisis in the archipelago.
We also had an opportunity to meet and work alongside journalists from the Fijian Broadcasting Corporation and Vanuatu Television and Broadcasting Corporation. Here is a piece I helped with on a secondary school netball competition in Suva, and below is a photo of sports journalist Talei with national women’s cricket coach Jone Seuvou.
While in Fiji I was also able to work on a side-project based on cricket, and the Fiji team that visited Cooma and lots of other places around NSW back in the 60s. I have since published an audio feature and other resources on this titled Sixes in Sulus. As part of compiling this I decided to start a Facebook and Instagram page to share my work.
If you visit those pages you’ll find my biggest undertaking yet, a podcast series on the history of the Cooma United Rugby League Football Club, my local team.
I was inspired to compile this series by reserve grade captain-coach James Boller over a few beers at the Alpine Hotel, and enjoyed having it as a side-project while living at home. While the finished project didn’t come out until May, when I had been in the UK for a couple of weeks, much of the work was done while I was spraying weeds around the Monaro. Over the weekends or after work I’d head in to Cooma to interview many of the voices you hear in the series, or chat to people from further afield over the phone. I also spent a good few Saturday mornings at the fantastic Snowy Monaro Regional Library in Cooma trawling through their newspaper archive. The occasional rainy day meant no work, which came in handy, especially in the editing phase.
Below is a chat I had about the project with ABC South East NSW Mornings host Eddie Williams. He was good enough to have me on and make this audio available afterwards, which I am grateful for.
While in the UK I’ve been writing the match reports for our games to be published in the Dorset Echo, the daily paper that covers the county I’m living in. Here is my report from Round 1.
Russ Haylock Sportswriting 