ASU students are getting first hand experience covering professional sporting events and sporting news, ASU journalism student said.

                  Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at ASU is giving students the ability to cover professional sports and experience what it is like first hand, senior Tyler Paley said.

                  “I have been on the executive board of Walter Cronkite Sports Network now for three years, getting to be on the field for ASU football games, basketball games, and many other sporting events,” Paley said.

                  Also working for Cronkite News, Paley is able to cover professional Arizona sports and news that relates to those teams and ASU.

                  Josh Rawitch, sr. vice president of content and communications for the Diamondbacks, said that ASU journalism students, “are doing a terrific job.”

                  Paley said that he chose ASU because of the “abundance of opportunities to be able to work with sports organizations.”

                  “Being a division one school that offers student journalists very exclusive content made ASU a destination school for me,” Paley said.

                  Students at other schools get similar experience, but it is not as in depth, Paley said.

                  Patrick Pace, student at California State Chico University who also writes for the school newspaper said that he was able to cover the school’s men’s basketball team on its journey in March Madness.

                  “I was able to get a decent amount of access, but I would have liked more,” Pace said.

                  “I had to take advantage of the very little access the school allowed me to have with the student athletes,” Pace said.

                  Paley said that the access is what keeps him in journalism, “the access keeps me here.”