Little journalists, Big stories: Savannah Bananas and GSU let Brooklet students be sports reporters & marketers for the day

UPDATED Feb 8: See photos of the student news team at the Georgia Southern women’s basketball game that honored women in sports yesterday from Brooklet Elementary School HERE.

Brooklet Elementary School’s student news team had their own personal media day with the Savannah Bananas Baseball Team on Feb. 2, and Georgia Southern University Women’s Basketball will welcome the young journalists on Wed. Feb. 7. 

The visits give students a great opportunity to further explore careers in multimedia journalism and sports marketing and practice their journalism skills as they serve their school.

Eleven members of the news team, led by their advisor, Ethan Sandhagen, a fifth-grade English teacher at the school, travelled to Historic Grayson Stadium in Savannah to learn and practice their media skills. During the visit they interviewed players, coaches and members of the Savannah Bananas’ media team. They also helped set up the team’s pregame show for their scheduled scrimmage on Friday night.

In addition to managing their school’s daily intercom announcements, the BES News Team prepares stories and produces a live broadcast every five weeks. This includes the video production and live streaming of the broadcast. Students are selected to be part of the news team based on their interest, charisma, and their writing and public speaking skills. At the beginning of each school year in August, Sandhagen trains and prepares a new news team that goes live with their first broadcast of the year on the day after labor day, and then every five weeks thereafter.

“This team really does a fantastic job sharing the news with our school,” said Sandhagen.  “They announce lunch choices, weather conditions for the day, any special school events, they interview staff members, lead our school rallies, announce birthdays, tell jokes, and showcase any student awards.  They really do keep us all informed.”

Sandhagen shared that the news team has also had the chance to interview Georgia Southern’s basketball coaches and players. The female members of the news team have also been invited back to GA Southern on Feb.7, to participate in National Girls and Women in Sports Day. These young student journalists will be emceeing game promotions, announcing the starting five lineup, interviewing staff and fans, taking over the GA Southern Women’s Basketball Instagram story for the game, and broadcasting the game live.

“These are all such amazing opportunities for the students,” Sandhagen said.

Bulloch County Schools