BYU Sports Media Student Katrina Huhtala Shares Her Experience During Global Sports Media Trip to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games
The clock was always ticking in Paris. As the athletes raced against time on the track, 17 fellow BYU communications students and I
were racing to capture, write, edit and post content in the blink of an eye.
Attending the 2024 Summer Olympics was something I had wanted to do ever since I heard rumors of the prospective study abroad years prior. This August, my dream finally became a reality.
The highlight of the trip was watching BYU alum Kenneth Rooks take silver in the men’s 3000m steeplechase. I watched the race on a restaurant TV in the streets of Paris, with strangers who also happened to be visiting from the USA. Even though we had just met a few minutes prior, we joined together cheering and screaming as we watched Rooks climb his way from 12th place to second place.
While most fans would take more time to celebrate after such an occasion, we knew we had to get right to work. Our professors searched the online archives for race photos while we pulled quotes from the broadcast, researched previous personal record times, wrote play-by-play recaps of the race and promoted all of our content on social media. We tackled these stories as a team effort.
As the social media manager for Daily Universe Sports, I was highly impressed by the content I received from the other students. They didn’t wait for a story to fall in their lap, they went outside and they found one. A huge part of journalism is finding stories as you go and this experiential learning opportunity taught us how to do so in a real-world setting.
One of my favorite moments of the trip was attending the quarterfinal game for Team USA’s women’s soccer team, where they played against the Japan team. I made a last minute decision to bring my camera, even though I knew I wouldn’t have any field access for photos. To my surprise, BYU had secured us front row seats for the game, with a great view of the goal area. As USA scored in overtime, I was able to capture forward position player Trinity Rodman falling to the ground in a group hug with her teammates. Because I wasn’t in the designated photo area like the official Olympic photographers, I was able to get a unique angle of the team that made our content stand out from the other reports.
I’ve learned that journalism is all about capturing the story from a different angle. When dozens of news organizations are putting out the same stories, it is important to look for something that will make my content standout. My experiences in Paris taught me how to step outside my comfort zone and tell stories in ways that I never imagined I could before. I’m forever grateful to BYU for giving me this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
