"Sports Journalists Finding Their Place"
By: Michael Salwen and Bruce Garrison
This article focused on the beliefs of problems that sports journalists and journalists in general have, and recorded the most important down to the least with similar in between. Sports journalism use to be and still sometimes is mentioned as a diversion from the days serious news. And not too long ago is wasn't held to traditional journalistic standards. The field of sports journalism is being questioned of its seriousness from both sides of journalism: sports authorities and from other forms of journalism. An early study mentioned in the article stated that sports journalists actually believed it was improving and on par with other journalists as far as creativity and ethics were concerned. This is highly debated still to this day.
The article mentioned two ways to speak with sports journalists and they are: Quantitative tradition and Qualitative tradition. The first refers to a survey using standardized instruments and draw broad and reliable generalizations but little in-depth understanding. The second gains understanding but provides limited knowledge of the big picture.
The main study of this article focused on two open-ended questions that were asked. The first was what are the problems facing sports journalism and then the problems facing journalism in general. Of those who were asked some ninety-five percent were white males, so it did lack some diversity but the results hold accountable information. The answers were broken down into nine different categories: Professionalism, reader related, economic/resources, diversity, writing/reporting, competition, issues/content, job-related and sources/access. Following this came the second stage which were in-depth interviews with the people that responded. Overall findings indicated that sports journalists perceived the problems facing SJ and J in general as very different matters. Sports Journalists viewed sources/access problems as far more relevant to SJ than to the field of journalism in general. Journalists in general had no mention of sources of access being a problem. These two fields shared several common problems that were major concerns, according to the respondents. These were from the professional and economic categories. They were really concerned with the perception of ethics and credibility that new journalists coming in were being taught and the lack of resources and money their companies will have in the future. One main concern from both fields was that television broadcasters had more authority over them which caused them to lose time with their sources. Another commonality amongst both fields was competition. Broadcaster journalism was a focus here but also from other newspapers and companies producing the same news. Their overall concern was the competition against the newspaper industry and if they will survive with new technologies. The big picture of the results was that this is a troubled group concerned about its future and the role and status of newspaper sports journalism.
"Changes in Sports Communications"
By: Drew Hancherick
October 5, 2010 is a "watershed moment in sports journalism history." The mention of a trade of Randy Moss to the Vikings. The story was no where in the media except that Bill Simmons released a short tweet about the idea. He was lucky this ended up being true as the rest of the article kind of explains.
The rest of the introduction gets into the background and usage of Twitter in short detail. It is then followed by the history of newspaper, radio, magazines, television and the internet. The 1920's is referred to as the "Golden Age of Sports." Radio broadcast was first introduced in April 11, 1921 and featured a boxing match. Baseball quickly became America's pastime because of three factors: radio broadcasts, the emergence of Babe Ruth, and the end of the Dead Ball Era. Sports writers captured more than the game and really connected with its readers. Then came magazines and television. May 17, 1939 was the first T.V. broadcast which aired a college baseball game. Sports Illustrated started in 1954 which started the evolution of sports journalism as a respected field. The "Wide World of Sports" started in April 29, 1961 but later died when ESPN launched on September 7, 1979. It had sportscenter broadcasts twenty-four/seven in over one-hundred fifty countries. Then came the internet which became a viable source in the 1990's. ESPN's website launched in 1995 and provided all the information that the newspaper, radio and television combined did. The World Wide Web provided two innovations for consumers: Immediacy and content control. The internet eliminated the waiting game and user control reached an all time high. This helped to raise the me-first generation.
The implication is the with new technology comes new ways of gathering and publishing information. Now there is the "Rapid Fire News Cycle": pushing out news as fast as possible. The rush leaves reporters with ethical dilemma, should a story be published before it can be verified by credible sources?
Two stories where people published misinformation which led to a huge controversy. The breaking of Code of Ethics, "Public is entitled to as much information as possible on sources reliability," and "Clarify and explain news coverage." Pressure from audience forces reporters to bend the rules to deliver fast and exciting news. Because these two people releases misinformation which led to other companies expanding on it when it wasn't even true led to credibility issues amongst themselves and their companies. It severely damaged their reputations as well. Because sports organizations and athletes use Twitter to directly connect with fans in real time it puts an increasing amount of pressure on journalists story and ultimately their jobs. The up to the second information reduced the cycle from twenty-four/seven to sixty/sixty: sixty seconds a minute, sixty minutes an hour.
The conclusion of this article is that with the constant demand from audience for any kind of up to date news causes news stories to be based on gossip, speculation and hearsay to receive as much time in headlines as deserving news stories. Hancherick says, "Constant change and adaptability is key, but at some point enough is enough." I believe he is right, journalists shouldn't be risking credibility and code of ethics just so that they can produce the most up to date news without reliable sources. I think we as a society have lost the sense of time and don't focus on the important issues facing journalism. We want what we think we deserve without consideration of those who are giving it to us.
Mark Valeriano
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