Sportswriter and former deputy editor of the Observer Magazine Emma John tells us about her incredible career, ahead of her March sportswriting masterclass.
Can you tell us a bit about your background and how you came to be a sportswriter?
Well, as I wrote about in my book, Following On, I was a huge cricket fan/nerd when I was a teen. I fell in love with the game in 1993 when the England team were really about to begin one of the worst sporting decades of their history. For reasons that I can only put down to hormones, I stuck with them through thin and thinner, and when my mother – also a sports fan – suggested I get a job in the school holidays, I sought out a cricket magazine where I could, I hoped, and I spent the days watching the game. In the end it turned out I was mostly typing up interviews that other people had done with players, and that made me want to meet and interview them myself. By the time I left university I had a surprising amount of experience from those holiday jobs and I ended up getting a full-time position on Wisden Cricket Monthly – and I never looked back.
What is one of the most exciting or rewarding moments of your career to date?
Covering the London and the Rio Olympics. I still can’t believe the Guardian chose me to be on their team, and it was the greatest privilege of my life.
Can you tell us about your time covering London and Rio? Which sports were you covering? Do you have a particular favourite memory from either of those experiences?
At both London and Rio I focused a lot on gymnastics, hockey and diving – but I also wound up doing unexpected jobs such as, for instance, the women’s hammer, the 1,000m sprint kayak pairs, or the modern pentathlon; sports I’d never seen before, let alone written about.
London was incredible – not least because I live on the Overground, only a few stops from the Olympic Park, so everyday I was leaving my flat and within 20 minutes I’d be walking into this completely magical alternative reality. The sense of camaraderie was very special – there’s nothing like it on earth, and only your fellow journalists could understand the intense nature of the job.
Most mornings I would feel just as nervous as the day before, and as I travelled to the Park I would pep myself up with a special music playlist – just like a sportsperson, to convince myself I could handle the job.
Rio was a lot harder than London in many respects because the venues were so spread out and travelling between them was complicated and lengthy, which added to the pressure. But I did get to cover Britain’s first gymnastics gold medals, both won by Max Whitlock – an athlete I’d been following for four years by this point, so that was pretty special. I remember vividly the moment Kenzo Shirai stumbled in his floor routine – I just knew, in that instant, that Max was going to win – I even turned to my colleague and said so!
I also covered Britain’s women’s hockey gold, which again was wonderful because I’d reported on their defeat in the semis four years earlier. And even though it was a very difficult match to cover – it went right down to the wire, extra time and penalties – so filling the deadline was very pressurised. That was one of the most extraordinary and elating sports events I’ve seen.
How does sportswriting differ from other strands of journalism?
Well it certainly trains you to write to deadline as well – if not better than – any other form of reporting. There aren’t many events where you have only 90 minutes of action and are expected to have 1,000 words ready for print the second it’s over. It’s also incredibly competitive and collegiate at the same time, although I imagine that this is not dissimilar from life as a lobby correspondent.
How can budding sportswriters make themselves stand out in an overcrowded market?
Really it comes down to having good stories. You can be a great writer – and practice certainly helps with that – but if you can consistently uncover and get access to stories that your peers don’t have, then you will be every editor’s friend.
What are the key challenges when writing a live match report? And how are these challenges tackled?
Mostly, a live match report comes down to managing the time pressure and making sure you’re shaping the narrative as you go – which is hard, as you don’t know exactly what the story will be until the match is over! Moat reporters have a fairly standard technique for this, which is to keep one eye on the game while writing the middle section of their report first. You leave your intro and your final paragraph until the final whistle, when you know the overarching narrative.
How do you interview an athlete? Does this differ from interviewing, say, television celebrities or people in the street?
I’d say that sportspeople are some of the hardest on Earth to interview. They’re not really selling anything, which means they often approach media requests as a chore and an obligation, and they’re usually far more comfortably expressing themselves on the field than they are in words.
But really, it’s the same as with any interview; you want to find a way you can mutually communicate, in a way that puts them at ease. Finding unusual and unexpected questions often works for me, but it’s really important to listen as much as it is to talk.
What three takeaways do you hope people will get from your March masterclass?
I hope they’ll come away with an inside understanding of how sports media works, that they will learn what editors are looking for from them, and with new tools to both critique and improve their writing.
Emma John will be leading a masterclass in sportswriting on 4 March 2019. Book tickets here.
