BCOMS and News UK’s partnership continues as The Sun newspaper delivers an exclusive Masterclass to the London cohort.
The Masterclass was hosted by Shaun Custis, Head of Sport at The Sun. The Masterclass was a great opportunity to learn more about the bustling newspaper industry and how it is still relevant in the digital media landscape.
The Masterclass began with Shaun explaining his professional journey, starting in his hometown of Newcastle, working for a variety of different publications and eventually becoming the Head of Sport. This was followed by a question and answer session with the BCOMS group including questions like « how do you keep people buying newspapers » and hearing about hitting deadlines after a busy match day.
The class was joined by David Firth (Sports Production Editor) and Dean Scoggins (Deputy Head of Sport), who spoke about their roles at The Sun. They also spoke to the class about Goals, a special football edition within the newspaper and how it is put together.
The class was then tasked with picking a cover story, headline and photo to go in the Saturday special edition pullout newspaper. The group were provided with a variety of images and main stories for the next day. The Sun is known for their puns, funny or attention grabbing headlines, this was a great opportunity for the cohort to be creative and work as a team.
Once each group had made a decision, they were tasked with presenting and explaining their choices. After presenting, the class was able to see what was actually going on the cover of the paper for the Saturday edition, and why this was chosen.
The evening ended with some networking and conversations between the BCOMS cohort and The Sun staff.