Alumni Spotlight: Is that Alice Reeves-Turner on TV?

Woking Swimming Club Alumna, Alice Reeves-Turner (22), shares her journey from WSC swimmer to Sport Journalist interviewing Adam Peaty!

Read Alice's full Bio on our Alumni page here: LINK

Alice, how did you get into journalism and sports media? 

In my second year of university, I began to look at ways in which I could combine my love of sports with my English degree. I got in contact with Swim England, British Swimming and Swimming World Magazine, and began to do volunteer work for all three; this involved writing a bi-weekly piece for Swimming World and running the social media accounts at events for Swim England.

As I continued on with my degree, I wrote for my student magazine (WOW) and began to get work experience with more high-profile institutions such as BBC Sport, The Telegraph, Team GB and The Times. This led to me being accepted on to a post-grad diploma in Multimedia sports Journalism which officially kick started my career in journalism and sports media. 

I am currently working as a freelance journalist, alongside working for a sports media and management agency called TLA Worldwide- who manage swimmers such as Adam Peaty, Duncan Scott and Freya Anderson. With TLA I got to travel out to Budapest for the 2020 ISL to act as London Roar's Media Manager.

We saw you were recently at ISL; can you explain what this is for those that are not aware?

The International Swimming League is an annual professional swimming league established in 2019 which contains the best swimmers from around the world! The London based team is called London Roar and its members include swimmers from all over the world including Adam Peaty, Alia Atkinson, Minna Atherton, Kira Toussaint, Kyle Chalmers, Kirill Prigoda and Duncan Scott. 

Any funny moments you can recall ? Any swimmer who impressed you the most?

One of my favourite moments at ISL 2020 was Kira Toussaint’s World Record in the 50m backstroke. When not capturing content for the team at the ISL ‘matches’, I was in charge of looking after swimmers with fast turnarounds, which Kira had many of whilst we were out in Budapest. Throughout the competition I got to know Kira pretty well and to watch her achieve her World Record was incredible.

Around Halloween a few of the London Roar swimmers were working with Speedo to create a scare- cam video for Instagram (you can still find the footage on Speedos social media, the hysterical giggle in the background is my one). The filming of this got some great reactions, my favourite being when Alia Atkinson jumped out at Mel Marshall. 

All the London Roar swimmers impressed me immensely. The whole team are incredibly dedicated and hardworking individuals who gave everything they could to a team that they love. 

Do you feel your sporting past with Woking and at University has helped you in your career?

Swimming for Woking was the first stepping stone in my love of sports, and is the thing that I credit with both my choice of university and my career! Without it I would not have gravitated towards my choice of Loughborough - my parents knew I was set on it as soon as we saw the pool there. My time at uni made me fall even more in love with sports generally, I arguably spent more time playing or watching sport than I spent doing my actual degree, leading me to combine my degree in English with what I am most passionate about. 

Swimming has made me into the confident, chatty and very organised person I am today, all of which is key to my career.

What was it like reporting at such a high-level sporting event?

Reporting on high level sporting events is incredibly exciting but can also be very stressful! Journalists are often expected to hand in on the whistle reports, meaning that as soon as the match finishes your article is expected to be with the news desk, even if a last-minute goal meant you had to rewrite your whole copy!! 

What other sporting events have you reported at ?

I have been lucky enough to report on numerous sporting events including the ISL 2019 and the Team GB Hocky Olympic qualifiers. I have also got to interview some incredible athletes including Ellen Keane, Adam Peaty, Alice Dearing, Bridget Andrews and Holly Mills. 

Any tips for any of our budding journalists in the club ?

The more experience you can get the better! This can be something as basic as writing for a student magazine or approaching the media team at Swim England or British Swimming and offering to help them out with their social media at gala’s. The more you do, the more you will get and the more likely you are to break into an incredibly competitive industry.

Journalists are normally very happy to help aspiring journalists, be brave enough to chat to them. News Associates (who are based in Twickenham and are where I did my journalism qualification) are also happy to offer lots of helpful advice and even run free taster days. 

If you do a journalism qualification make sure it is NCTJ accredited- a lot of newsrooms won’t give you a job without it!