LAUSANNE, June 12, 2021 – After just over a month packed with a total of 30 intensive, eye-opening Zoom meetings spread across three days a week, the second edition of the AIPS e-College came to an end on June 11, leaving indelible footprints in the journalistic minds of participants.  

“Time to Rebuild Sport Journalism” was the theme of the 2021 e-College, which introduced a unique door-to-door concept that made it possible for the attendees to absorb comprehensive lessons and discussions in their official language, while in the comfort of their time zone, for free. All sessions were conducted on Zoom. 

PROUD “I’m very proud of what we have built together,” AIPS President Gianni Merlo said during the final week. “We have engaged in a kind of globalisation because now you have friends around the world and you can contact them to get the right information from their countries. 

“Our association has created this course to show that we respect everybody. It is our duty to find a balance. We did not want any part of the world to feel cut off from the discussions, that’s why we organized it in different languages,” he added. 

About 70 countries were represented in the distance-learning project, which has enabled students to be up-to-date with the latest trends and also see the bigger picture: reinventing journalism cannot be postponed any longer and fake news are just the tip of the iceberg. Even in difficult and challenging times, good journalism never stops. And this is one message the e-College has upheld since it was created in April 2020. 

GLOBAL SESSIONS Each of the six weeks in the 2021 e-College focused on different crucial topics and opened with a global session, held with simultaneous translations in Arabic, English, French and Spanish on Tuesdays. It was only the penultimate session that had to be moved to Thursday (June 3), so as to mark 50 days to Tokyo 2020 from the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, with the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Thomas Bach making an appearance in a special event that coincided with the launch of Michael Payne’s Toon In!  

TOPICS Other topics were Photography, Broadcasting, Writing, Investigative Reporting, Robot Reporting, Fake News and Transgender Politics: Science vs Ideology, with each session featuring AIPS Sport Media Awards winners, top international guests and fellow media professionals, who shared invaluable insights and fielded questions from participants. The global sessions were open to all journalists. Transgender Politics: Science vs Ideology was the most sensitive topic discussed in the e-College with renowned women's sports advocates Donna de Varona and Martina Navratilova as speakers in the global session alongside legal and medical experts. The continental sessions subsequently featured a total of five former and current transgender athletes who shared their personal experiences.

CONTINENTAL TUTORIALS The continental tutorials, which were split into four languages and time zones delved deeper into the points raised from the global sessions and provided a more intimate platform for the students under 30 to interact with their experienced mentors, who were sometimes accompanied by guests. The young reporters were also encouraged to work on different assignments before or after the sessions and are given personalised feedbacks. Led by AIPS president Gianni Merlo, mentors for this edition were Martin Mazur (Argentina), Keir Radnedge (UK), Riccardo Romani (Italy) and Jean Paul Savart (France). They participated in the global sessions, each Tuesday, before conducting their own continental tutorials in the second session of the week. 

CERTIFICATES Participants who attended at least nine out of 12 lessons and also took part in assignments will receive certificates from AIPS.

ARTICLES AND VIDEOS All articles for the 2021 AIPS e-College can be found here. Videos for the global sessions are available on the AIPS YouTube Channel.
 

WHAT THEY SAID  

“What I've mostly learned from the AIPS eCollege is the fact, that the challenges I am facing as a young reporter, which I thought are very personal, are in fact the challenges to many others all around the world,” Wojciech Nowakowski from Poland said, adding that the e-College also provided a “great opportunity” to establish many international contacts. “I am very happy that I could have taken part in such a project and now, writing the words just a few minutes after the final session concluded, I am already missing it,” he concluded. 

Having that chance to connect with people from all over the world “is the best experience any journalist can ask for”, said Abir Rharib from Morocco, as she reflected on an experience that she found “very enriching” and from which she has “learned so many skills and strategies” - like storytelling, building a network of sources and using the right words - that will help her create impactful journalistic content across various media platforms . “As journalists we can bring people and cultures together. Mr. Radnedge said in last class that ‘a real journalist focuses on transmitting knowledge and education to readers, viewers, and listeners, and is going to always be valuable in the future’.”   

Azra Isic from Spain said: “Being an AIPS e-College student this year has helped me to grow as a professional. In both global and continental sessions, I have had the opportunity to meet many sports journalists, highly experienced professionals and elite athletes, who, through their experience and advice, have taught me a lot and have helped me open my eyes, be more objective, confident and a better journalist.” Particularly, Isic, who has Bosnian roots, said it was an honour to have been able to learn from Hassen Guedioura winner of the AIPS Sport Media Awards 2020 in Short Video category, after his award-winning video Ines Ibbou made a huge impression on her. Also, listening to Mara Gomez and Lorena Berluda in the session about transgender politics “made me put myself in their shoes to understand what they are going through”. 

Erenayo Dorcas Koki from Nigeria described the course as “enlightening, educative and informative”. She said: “Six great weeks of being taught about investigative journalism, revealing the dirt people want to keep hidden, how to photograph quality pictures and filming heart felt or human angle documentaries. Understanding 'inclusion' of 'Transgender' Athletes in sports, and how important it is to report these kinds of stories from an unbiased position, and of course, having to discuss the 'Tokyo Olympics' was all worth my time.” 

“This opportunity opened many doors for me,” Abrar Fuhaid from Yemen revealed. “Through it I was able to find the best answers to all my questions; my understanding and vision of things expanded in an unprecedented way.” 

Fuhaid added: “After each lecture I search for the vocabulary mentioned during the session and look extensively. What distinguishes this course is that we were able to reach and interact with high profile media professionals from all around the world in multiple fields and we were able to ask all our questions without any restrictions. We shared opinions with love, without any prejudice and despite our different ethnicity, religions and dialects, we really felt close as if we were there in reality.” 

Miguel Paulo from Uruguay said the e-College was “an extremely beneficial experience”. He added: “It gave us the opportunity to share ideas, learn about other scenarios and discuss current issues. Topics that are fundamentally necessary for the development of our work nowadays were put on the table, and that is appreciated.” 

According to Djelika Guindo from Mali the course has unearthed a “hidden potential in me”. “Even if my speciality is hosting sports shows and commentating matches, I also like reporting, taking photos, making videos, and this programme has showed me how, when and where to do it and to have self-confidence.” 

Madiagne Niang from Senegal added: “The training allowed me to deepen my knowledge in the field of journalism, from collection to processing. It gave me the right keys to be quickly operational and prepared for the difficulties of the job. For example, I learned to perfect my approach to interviewing people. The programme has given me a very clear idea about the transgender issue, and the way to talk about this sensitive topic in our media, even if it is not always obvious, especially in a conservative country as mine. Through this programme, I managed to "unearth" some tricks to make a very good journalistic investigation. This is the sessions that I liked the most because I love investigating.” 

GRATITUDE From class to social media, the students have continued to express gratitude to the mentors, guests and even their colleagues for a successful 2021 AIPS e-College. They are especially appreciative of the opportunity to have been able to learn and interact in their own language. “We were able to learn and discuss topics in depth and in a very interesting and attention catching way,” Fuhaid observed. 

“The translation was perfect at the global sessions and it allowed me to be at the same level of understanding as the others,” said Niang. 

For Guindo, the translation service for the global session was “sometimes complicated to get all the points” but the continental French sessions “allowed me a better understanding of presentations, sharing my thoughts and asking question without any problem”. He added: “The most important for me is that I was able to meet new people who speak the same language as me, and this will enrich my contacts list.” 

Paulo said: “The fact that it has given us the opportunity to have sessions in our language also enriches the experience, because beyond language, we share closer experiences that allowed us to develop the ideas clearly. This e-College taught, inspired and gave us strength to keep going.”