Laura Campbell

Professional E-Portfolio

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An Introduction to My Portfolio

Hi All,

Welcome to my Portfolio.

My name is Laura Campbell and I am currently studying Communications and Media (Sports Media) at the University of Canberra. I have chosen to study this degree due to my love of many sports, such as Rugby League, Formula One Racing and Cricket and wanting to form in-depth conversations about them.

I grew up in Forbes, New South Wales, where the most dominant form of sport was Rugby League, which explains why I have chosen to study Sports Media and seek to find a career involved with Rugby League. 

Another reason as to why I have chosen to study Sports Media is due to the fact that I didn’t have many female role models when it came to watching the presenters. Upon further research I found that the Sports Media industry is still heavily dominated by men, yet slowly diversifying and I want to be a part of that change and be able to inspire young women to break barriers and follow their aspirations.

[laura-campbellprofessional]

Reflection on Self Assessment

The main take away from my employability skill self assessment was an emphasis on expanding my emotional literacy. This is shocking to me as I like to think of myself as someone who can help alleviate pressure or stress of those who aren’t coping. Occupational literacy also needs to be worked on due to the hesitance I feel when thinking of changing my future career or current study. It stresses to me the importance of having a ‘Plan B’ in my career which I haven’t given too much thought to. I also need to work on my self confidence in the workplace and be confident with using the skills that I’m learning at university in real life situations.

[laura-campbellprofessional]

Minute Papers

At the end of each class, this question was asked; What was the most significant thing you learned during this session?

Week 4

Learning the values, importance and reasons for ethics in journalism and the consequences if the ethics weren’t followed, this will help ensure that I can be successful in my career as proper conduct will form my reputation. Writing structure for different platforms gave insight into the importance of producing concise and accurate information, this will be particularly helpful as journalism is expanding into the digital sphere as well as spreading on social media. Being able to construct reports and adapt them to different platforms will help with my need to be flexible within the industry.

Week 5

Being able to define what a career is was helpful as it helped put goals and aims into a long term lens. Being able to identify skills as well as develop them and use them effectively in order to become successful in my career. This class was helpful in making me realise that I need to become more confident in using different digital platforms, when I previously thought I could avoid the technical side.

Week 9 

With week nine focusing on our digital footprints, I realised how important it is to clean up how you are viewed online as this helps form people's first opinions on you and if you would be a good fit to their workplace. Managing our digital footprint and online professionalism is important as employers will want to do their own research on you.

My take:

These tutorials were particularly helpful in making me realise how much more work I need to put into my education, developing my skills and image if I want to be a Sports Media professional.

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Assignment One Reflection

Self Reflection

This was my first university assignment to which I received a sound grading that I wasn’t too disappointed with. I can see that my major downfall in this assignment may be the fact that I did not interpret what was outwardly asked of me properly and instead went more along the line that what I was already doing was good enough. Although it was good it could have been better had I looked at the rubric more often to pinpoint where I could be better. Examples that I gave were also not detailed and specific enough and neither were their ways of dealing with these challenges.

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Assignment Two Reflects

Pitch Your Presentation

This has been one of my best assignments yet and one that I am very proud of given its unorthodox presentation with my partner getting COVID. One of the main areas to improve on was being detailed with our sections. Detail was something I was willing to compromise on the slides as I didn’t want the slides looking too information heavy as I rather say what wasn’t on the slide. We missed marks by not explaining or providing detailed examples of different careers in sports media as well as presenting skills and attributes together when they should have been separate to demonstrate that we clearly knew the differences between the two. 

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Industry Panel

Who attended?

Lauren Pritchard - Digital Media Producer for the Canberra Raiders

Chris Dutton - Sports Media Editor at The Canberra Time

Tim Gavel - Contributing editor at Region Media Group and former sports commentator

What did you learn from them?

The main message from the Industry Panel was to take anything that is presented to me. Whether it be internships or possible career changes to better suit my strengths. Some of the most helpful insights came from Chris’ contributions as he made me realise the constant hustle of the industry as well as how cut throat it can be as everyone is after the big story of the week, month or even year. The best way to stay on top of everything is to secure an internship as this will let me know what I desire in my career or lead to a future career at the organisation. He also stressed sports literacy as this will give me a wide range of sports news to report on.

What questions did you ask?

I asked two questions during the event directed at Tim and Lauren.

To Lauren I asked what the main differences between working for the NRL compared to the Canberra Raiders. Although Lauren now works in a more behind the scenes job compared to what I want, she did give me helpful insight as to the differences in working for a news organisation such as the NRL compared to working for a club like the Canberra Raiders. The main difference she said was the speed that information is received, at the NRL everything was instantaneous whereas at the Canberra Raiders she would have to chase up with athletes, coaching staff and administrators in order to release a statement. 

To Tim I asked how has the landscape of the sports media industry changed and if it was difficult adjusting to the new changes. He responded by saying that there have been two major changes: the inclusion of women and the development of technology. He said that the inclusion of women has been beneficial to the sports media industry due to the rise of women's sports as this allows the athletes to feel more comfortable with their interviewer, leading to a more relaxed and gain more insight from the interview. He also mentioned how women always ask the questions they desire the most and wont let people skate around it. He would also sing the same praises for technology as it has enabled audiences to access news from anywhere, from anyone.

What are your main take aways?

Main takeaways were to apply for internships, take as many as you can. Staying open minded, level headed and knowing boundaries and limits will help in promoting yourself as people don’t want to interact with individuals who are brash, overbearing and rude

[laura-campbellprofessional]

Future Plan

The Next Five Years

The next five years still include two and a half years left of University. In the next two and a half years I plan to look into and apply for internships that correspond with what I aspire to do in my career. I would also be open to apply for courses or workshops that could help me with developing and expanding on my digital sphere skills. I would like to look into photography, photo editing, audio and visual media, as by expanding these skills I become more eligible for employment  as well as being able to expand possible career opportunities due to the digital world creating more jobs for individuals.   

As for my plan after graduation, I remain unsure. I hope that the contacts I have made through my time at University as well as my education can help me land job opportunities that can later help me lead to my overall career goal. My lack of an outlook on the furthest two and a half years in my five year plan is worrying to me, yet still motivates me to make sure I take any and every opportunity, piece of advice or possible contact that is offered to me in order to plan the next stage of my life effectively. 

[laura-campbellprofessional]

Personal Influences

The following people are individuals I look up to with in the world of Sports Media whether it be for their professional conduct, personality or their work. Each of these individuals carry one or multiple of may reasons as to why I look up to them, I deem each one of these people vitally important to their fields and aspire to be like them.   Natalie Pinkham

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/in-the-pink/id1363070064

https://www.instagram.com/natalie_pinkham/ https://twitter.com/NataliePinkham?s=20&t=02IQvsmhd8edXbPUYtRgJg

Yvonne Sampson

https://www.instagram.com/vonokeefe/

https://twitter.com/VonOKeefe?s=20&t=Fyz1XbxcY1moJVlJk9jk2g

Hannah Hollis

https://www.instagram.com/hannahhollis_/?hl=en

https://twitter.com/hannahhollis_?s=20&t=Fyz1XbxcY1moJVlJk9jk2g

Matthew Johns

https://www.instagram.com/mattyjohnsaus/

https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-matty-johns-podcast/id1117246594

Kym Illman

https://www.instagram.com/kymillman/

https://twitter.com/KymIllman?s=20&t=Ai4FLi2qtG3Nm6nE-SBqCg

https://www.kymillman.com/

https://au.linkedin.com/in/kymillman