Ray Boyd Week 5 Post

Erin Whiteside tackled the premise that we've been discussing regarding the perception that sports is seen as the "toy department" in journalistic circles. As a sports journalist myself, it is hard to accept this perception, but there is certainly merit to the idea. There are aspects of sports journalism that allow for a slight bending of the conventional rules of journalism leading to a "laid back" perception. However, there are certainly aspects that do just the opposite and that show the professional prowess displayed by sports journalists. Whiteside does a good job of presenting aspects of each.

 One aspect that she outlines is the phenomenon of sports reporters going easy on their subjects for fear of possibly offending and losing a source. This act leads to many individuals seeing sports journalists as passive on their subjects while skirting their responsibility to inform the public the way they need to. There is a perception that sports journalists play nice with their subjects while the others have to be watchdogs. It draws into mind the question of who exactly are sports reporters serving.

Whiteside addressed an opinion that brought to light the reality that as sports organizations have grown in wealth, so to have sports media outlets. The two industries have served one another which is a relationship unlike any other shared between the media and a subject.

This perception was obviously addressed in the research which I do greatly respect, however, I have serious issues with its validity. To evaluate the performance of sports reporters in terms of whether or not they are soft on sources you need more than a sample taken based on one random story. You have to address a wide array of stories because in each instance the aspects of the story will be different. Those numbers could easily be skewed by changing one aspect of the situation at random. What if Manny Ramirez played basketball, or football, or hockey instead of baseball? What if Ramirez was a minor leaguer or barely a major leaguer as opposed to a star player? What if Ramirez was a woman? What if he was white, or black instead of Latino? All of these could potentially alter the way a story is reported.

I like that the issues facing sports journalist were addressed with this research, but I don't think it's well rounded enough to really make a definitive statement about the quality of sports reporting.