Sports Journalism

A lot of people may think that reporting about sports may be irrelevant from a news stand point nor worthwhile to have its own section in a newspaper. This may be so but the truth is that there are millions of sports fans worldwide that wish to be informed about what is happening in the sports world. If we look at sports journalism as a form of telling readers a type of news defined as: “Information about recent events or happenings, especially as reported by newspapers, periodicals, radio, or television,” from thefreedictionary.com, then sports journalism is a reporting of information, events ect. in the sports world.

Other arguments towards disregarding sports journalism is that sports journalists are too objective and do not report the news of what is happening in sports. That may be true but what form of journalism is not objective at all? If you desired to read a non objective piece of writing then you probably will not get any closer than sports journalism because at one point you will come across the statistics from the event, team or specific athlete that is being reported on. There is a voice to be heard by sports journalists even if they are objective because they can allow information that may not be recorded in spread sheets and stats such as crowd noise or weather conditions that may have affected the outcome.

Sports journalism is a growing field; this is can be seen through the growth in journalism in colleges with an emphasis on sports journalism. With growing popularity in sports and specialized sports news and programming it is obvious why this field would be growing. In the past 15 years ESPN has expanded from a single network to having more than 20 television formats and their own magazine which rivals Sports Illustrated. In a newspaper sectional reading study, “The most popular newspaper section is 'Local/domestic/national news' (read by 65% of the readers), followed by 'Sports' (read by 59%).” As this field grows more and more people may be looking into this field of journalism. There are many colleges that offer journalism as a major and also have a sports journalism program, this link has a list of a few http://education-portal.com/sports_journalism_colleges.html. Beyond college looking into a career in sports journalism one would follow the same track as one looking into a career in journalism by getting internships or jobs for a newspaper or magazine and slowly working your way into the sports section. Beyond being a sports journalist for a local newspaper there are magazines that are sport specific and many that are report on a broad range of sports. The possibilities for a career in sports journalism are very open especially as the field grows with more and more people gaining interest in the many sports that are out there in the world.

http://www.zonalatina.com/Zldata29.htm
http://www.sportsjournalists.co.uk/blog/?p=142
http://journalsportsmedia.blogspot.com/2007/11/growing-field.html
http://espn.go.com/


-- Ian McCreary