Unit I: Chapter 1 [Sports Journalism]

1. Defining Sports Journalism

Sports Journalism:

• Definition-

1. • “A form of writing that reports on sporting topics and competitions. It is the disciplined craft of watching people compete, and reporting on the same.”
2. • While sports journalism remains to be an important and integral part of the news organisation, most of the organisations consider it as soft news and hence, give it less attention.
3. • Sports journalism is the essential element of many news media organizations.
4. • While the sports department within some newspapers has been mockingly called the toy department, because sports journalists do not concern themselves with the 'serious' topics covered by the news desk, sports coverage has grown in importance as sport has grown in wealth, power, and influence.

• Brief History-

1. • The symbiosis of media and sport seems to find its roots in the Victorian England era.
2. The year 1863 is marked in the history as a breakthrough in intensifying the relations between the two institutions.
3. • The introduction of rotary press in London provided an impetus to the growth of newspaper circulation. The same year in London, football association was formed which standardized the rules of the game eventually leading to its transformation into a game of mass attraction.
4. • In the year 1882, first imprint of journalism emerged on sporting history.
5. Australian cricket team was touring England and managed to beat the mighty English on their soil for the first time at the Oval. In response to this incidence of sports, the Sporting Times published a mock obituary and announced the death of English cricket by headlining it as “Body is cremated and the Ashes will be taken to Australia.”
6. • In the subsequent year when England was preparing to tour Australia, English newspapers sensationalized and wrote, “The tour is to regain the Ashes”. A damsel from Australia presented an urn to the touring captain Ivo Bligh which contained the ashes of a bail, a ball or a vail. Whatever it was, the urn would endure as the trophy for which the two nations would henceforth compete.

• Socio-Political Significance-

1. • In days when technology to intervene and aid in sports was still developing, print journalists played a special role in its games. They were named official scorers and kept statistics that were considered part of the official record of league.
2. • Active sportswriters were removed from this role in 1980.
3. Although their statistical judgment calls could not affect the outcome of a game in progress, the awarding of errors and wins/saves were seen as powerful influences on pitching staff selections and play lists when coach decisions seemed unusual. The removal of writers, who could benefit fiscally from sensational sports stories, was done to remove this perception of a conflict of interest, and to increase statistics volume, consistency, and accuracy.
4. • Sports stories occasionally transcend the games themselves and take on socio-political significance: Jackie Robinson breaking the colour barrier in baseball is an example of this.
5. • Modern controversies regarding the hyper-compensation of top athletes, the use of anabolic steroids and other, banned performance-enhancing drugs, and the cost to local and national governments to build sports venues and related infrastructure, especially for Olympic Games, also demonstrates how sports can intrude on to the news pages.

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