Asbury Graduate Chosen for Olympic Channel Fellowship Programme

August 7, 2018

Asbury University alumna Katie Ellington ’18 is just a few months post-graduation, but she’s already getting incredibly exciting work opportunities. Since May 2018, Ellington has been living in Madrid, Spain where she is doing a three-month fellowship with the brand-new Olympic Channel Services (OCS) Fellowship Programme.

Ellington is one of seven fellows and the only fellow from the United States. The other six fellows represent Brazil, China, Japan and South Korea.

According to a press release from OCS, “The purpose of this programme is to help young professionals develop new skills, expand their network and gain a new understanding of the vast possibilities for engaging global audiences through media. In return, the fellows will provide new perspectives on the types of content and approaches to media that are most relevant to young audiences in their respective countries.”

The idea for the fellowship had been in development for several years by OCS General Manager Mark Parkman and Academic Dean of the School of Communication Arts Dr. Jim Owens, who also serves as the Academic Director of the OBS (Olympic Broadcast Services) training program. The fellowship began on May 16.

For the first few weeks of the fellowship, Ellington’s job involved researching millennial social media use and the sports entertainment industry in the U.S. to gain perspective on how OCS content could become more relevant to American millennials.

The group also traveled to Lausanne, Switzerland to see the Olympic Studies Center and the Olympic Museum.

Ellington, along with the other fellows, presented research on her assigned topic and was then selected to work in the news department where she primarily serves as a writer.

“I’ve written some profiles on athletes like Noah Lyles and Brighton Zeuner,” Ellington said. “Profiles are fun because after writing it, I feel like I know the athlete personally. It makes me want to follow their career and cheer them on in the future.”

The fellowship has given Ellington the chance to improve her research skills in addition to learning the ins and outs of visual storytelling.

“Working for the Olympic Channel means covering a lot of different sports — including ones that I knew little to nothing about,” Ellington said. “A few weeks ago, my editor asked me to write some articles explaining the basics of rugby. I had never seen a rugby match before. I knew absolutely nothing about it. So, I had to do a lot of research. A journalist’s job is to inform readers, but we can’t be experts on everything. So, research is a critical skill to have.”

Ellington’s fellowship will be coming to an end in just a few weeks.

Where is she looking to take her career next? As a recent graduate, she’s still figuring that out, but she knows she wants to continue making her place in the journalism world.

“I’m hoping to keep working as a journalist,” Ellington said. “I love writing, learning and meeting new people and journalism allows me to do all three.”

“I’m really thankful for all the professors who invested in me during my time at Asbury,” Ellington said. “Going after this fellowship required certain professional skills, but it also required the confidence to try something that was far outside of my comfort zone. I wouldn’t have had the confidence to do something like this without the four years of support I got from my professors and mentors at Asbury.”

The Olympic Channel is a multi-platform destination where fans can discover, engage and share in the power of sport and the excitement of the Olympic Games all year round. Offering original programming, news, live sports events and highlights, the Olympic Channel provides additional exposure for sports and athletes 24 hours a day, 365 days a year in 11 languages.

To learn more about Asbury’s Journalism major, visit: asbury.edu/Journalism.