A trip to Paris for many is a dream vacation. For a group of nine students and two professors from Grady College, their trip to Paris to cover the Paralympics was all about work experience.
“I love not sleeping,” said Ana Escamilla, only half-jokingly, of the 17-hour days she spent writing news and features about the Paralympic Games for the Associated Press. “I love just being able to work and produce and create all the time and being put in a high-pressure situation where you’re surrounded by your work. This experience definitely solidified that this is the kind of environment that I want to work in for my professional career.”
Escamilla was one of four writers and five photographers who spent six days reporting on the games. The AP published 20 written features and 175 photographs to a worldwide audience.
The professors who coordinated the trip and served as liaisons with the AP were Welch Suggs, associate director of the Carmical Sports Media Institute, who worked with the student writers, and Mark E. Johnson, principal lecturer, who worked with the photojournalists. Suggs and Johnson met daily with the AP to discuss coverage plans, then guided the students on editing copy and captioning photos, most of the time on a very tight turnaround.
“This is not about tourism or study abroad,” Suggs said of the experience. “This is about students who went to do a job, and they rose to the occasion and produced amazing stuff. It’s going to have a long-lasting impact on how the Paralympics are seen in this country.”
The Paralympics in Paris marked the third time AP has worked with Grady College students, including the 2016 Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro and the 2023 Women’s World Cup in Australia.