Program provides real world experience to University of Texas School of Journalism students; one weekend in the fast lane.
(Houston, Texas)…..Risi Competizione, the Houston, Texas based TUDOR United Sports Car (“TUSC”) Series racing team, famous for the success of a series of red, No. 62 Ferrari race cars, has announced a new journalistic initiative for this weekend’s Tudor United Sports Car Championship series race at Circuit of the Americas in Austin.
The program will bring in five (5) young journalists from the University of Texas who will work as journalists and photographers for the race weekend that stretches from September 18th-September 20th. The program has been organized with the support and cooperation of the University of Texas School of Journalism, the Circuit of The Americas, and IMSA, the series administrator and organizer for TUSC. The concept behind the innovative program was to provide to journalism students a total immersion experience in real world of international sports car racing.
Throughout the weekend, the students will work on writing, social media, photography, and other public relations and communications assignments. They will produce projects based on their own ideas and also on assignments from the program sponsors. “The idea is to bring the young journalists into a professional world class racing event environment and to give them the experience of producing work at a high level while covering a race”, said Donald Pierce, Business Manager at Risi Competizione who organized the program in association with the other sponsors. “It’s a real world learning experience and it will all take place under the deadlines and pressures that professional journalists face when covering big events.
Throughout the weekend, the project sponsors have organized a series of short talks about various aspects of professional journalism, ranging from work flow to etiquette. Risi Competizione will be devoting a section of its race team website (www.risicompetizione.com) to their coverage; the work produced by the Young Journalists will be available for distribution through a variety of channels, including the COTA website and press relation channels, IMSA’s Tudor Website, and the University of Texas. Professional level exposure is one of the main components of the program.
Giuseppe Risi, Managing Director of Risi Competizione, said that “this program gives us a chance to create opportunities in journalism for students at the University of Texas. We are headquartered in Texas and we are always looking for ways to give back to our home state. This initiative is one way we can create opportunities where none existed before. We’ll be very interested to see and publish their perspective on motor racing”.
The five students selected for the program are Madison Hamilton, Brooks Kubena, Joe Capraro, Joe McMahon, and Stefan Scafield. The students are under the supervision of Professor Wanda Garner Cash, Associate Director of the School of Journalism at the University of Texas and Professor Robert Quiqley,University of Texas; Jarin Wadiwalla, Public & Media Relations Coordinator at Circuit of the America; Nate Siebens, Communications Director for IMSA. Don Pierce and Fiona Miller of Risi Competizione will manage the program for the Sponsors and Risi Competizione.