I recently spent a week at MSN News and Sport on work experience, I learned a lot during the week and was able to contribute articles and picture galleries to the website
Despite MSN not being the biggest news organisation it has a huge audience. I mainly worked with the sports team, which only consists of a few journalists, but it is not a problem as a lot of the sports news content is fed through by the Press Association - just like the news content. Features, match reports and interviews are mainly written by members of the sports team as well as freelance contributors.
Picture galleries are widely used on the Sport section of the website, they provide readers with something more interesting to look at rather than just words. I created some galleries during my time at MSN. I was given the responsibility for creating and maintaining the 'Premier League confirmed transfers' gallery, I had to research all the transfers that had been confirmed and compile the information into a gallery of pictures. I used an image of the club's biggest signing as well as listing all their other transfers. I also created two 'live galleries' for matches at Wimbledon. I updated the score after every game and used images from the Press Association.
I also turned press releases and interviews into pieces for the site, these were quick and easy to do, but added something different and original to the website as most of the other content is sent to MSN by PA. I also created galleries from pictures either sent in by PA or ones that we had sourced.
I also wrote a news story about the harm Chinese lanterns can cause, I called several parties who wanted to have a say on the issue and used their quotes to write the story. This gave me more experience of making calls and working to a deadline.
Working at MSN helped me to improve upon the journalistic skills that I already had as well as learning how to use the Bedrock content management system and how a newsroom works, which will stand me in good stead for when I start a job after completing my degree.
Links to the pieces I produced during my week at MSN.
Chinese lanterns news story
Premier League confirmed transfers gallery
Wimbledon funny faces gallery
Lions third Test preview
Andy Murray animals gallery
