Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

This paper explores how in-house sports reporters—those who write for team- and league-branded websites—locate themselves within the sports media production complex. It builds from perspectives on professionalism that view it as a dynamic process of defining boundaries and building relationships between systemic stakeholders. The interview data presented here find that in-house reporters accentuate professional similarities to beat reporters and use this identity to build unique roles in sports organizations’ corporate structures. This push to define themselves as a distinct job category within the constellation of sports media professions speaks to the active work occupational groups engage in, and is reshaping the media system. The paper argues for a broader reconsideration of professional definitions, actors, and relationships within the sports media system as digital technology and other changes have altered preexisting relationships.

Keywords

sports journalism in-house media boundary work team media ethics journalism practice

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Abbott

(1988). The system of professions: An essay on the division of expert labor. University of Chicago Press.

Anderson

(2013). What aggregators do: Towards a networked concept of journalistic expertise in the digital age. Journal of the Society of Laparoendoscopic Surgeons, 14(8), 1008–1023. https:/doi.org/10.1177/1464884913492460

Betts

J. R.

(1953). Sporting journalism in nineteenth-century America. American Quarterly, 5(1), 39–56. https:/doi.org/10.2307/3031289

Carlson

(2015a). Metajournalistic discourse and the meanings of journalism: Definitional control, boundary work, and legitimation. Communication Theory, 26(4), 349–368. https:/doi.org/10.1111/comt.12088

Carlson

(2015b). Introduction. In Carlson

Lewis

S.C.

(Eds), Boundaries of journalism: Professionalism, practices and participation (pp. 1–18). Oxford University Press.

Coddington

(2014). Defending judgment and context in ‘original reporting’: Journalists’ construction of newswork in a networked age. Journal of the Society of Laparoendoscopic Surgeons, 15(6), 678–695. https:/doi.org/10.1177/1464884913501244

Craggs

(2009, November 9). The basement tapes: A compendium of sportswriters’ hacky jokes about bloggers. Deadspin. http://deadspin.com/5408682/the-basement-tapes-a-compendium-of-sportswriters-hacky-jokes-about-bloggers

Culver

K. B.

Mirer

(2015). Constrained independence: Digital brand content in sports through the lens of journalism ethics. In Vanacker

Heider

(Eds), Ethics for a digital age (pp. 19–40). Peter Lang.

Curtis

(2015, March 20). Distant thunder: What did Oklahoma City’s media do to piss off Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant?Grantland. http://grantland.com/the-triangle/nba-russell-westbrook-kevin-durant-oklahoma-city-thunder-sports-media/

10.

Curtis

(2019, May 29). The bane of my existence’: U.K. sportswriting’s access crisis. The Ringer. https://www.theringer.com/sports/2019/5/29/18643311/uk-sportswriting-embargo-access-champions-league-independent

11.

Evensen

(1993). Jazz age journalism’s battle over professionalism, circulation, and the sports page. Journal of Sport History, 20(3), 229-246. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43609910.

12.

Fountain

(1993). Sportswriter. Oxford University Press.

13.

Gieryn

T. F.

(1983). Boundary-work and the demarcation of science from non-science: Strains and interests in professional ideologies of scientists. American Sociological Review, 48(6), 781-795. https://doi.org/10.2307/2095325.

14.

Gieryn

(1999). Cultural boundaries of science. University of Chicago Press.

15.

Hardin

(2005). Survey finds boosterism, freebies remain problem for newspaper sports departments. Newspaper Research Journal, 26(1), 66–73. https://doi.org/10.1177/073953290502600108

16.

Hoffarth

(2012, October 11). Was the NHL about to compromise the integrity of Kings’ Insider Hammond? Los Angeles Daily news. http://web.archive.org/web/20121016024001/http://www.insidesocal.com/tomhoffarth/archives/2012/10/more-on-why-the.html

17.

Holstein

J. A.

Gubrium

J. F.

(1995). The active interview. Sage.

18.

Jahng

M. R.

Littau

(2016). Interacting is believing. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 93(1), 38–58. https:/doi.org/10.1177/1077699015606680

19.

Jenkins

(2000, August 9). League’s web site links teams internet to be just like TV. USA Today, (3C).

20.

Lowes

M. D.

(1997). Sports page: A case study in the manufacture of sports news for the daily press. Sociology of Sport Journal, 14(2), 143-159. https://doi.org/10.1123/ssj.14.2.143.

21.

McChesney

(1989). Media made sport: A history of sports coverage in the United States. In Wenner

L.A.

(Ed), Media, sports,& society (pp. 49–70). Sage.

22.

Mirer

(2018). “I did what I do” versus “I cover football”. Journalism Practice, 12(3), 251–267. https:/doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2017.1284016

23.

Mirer

(2019). Playing the right way: In-house sports reporters and media ethics as boundary work. Journal of Media Ethics, 34(2), 73–86. https:/doi.org/10.1080/23736992.2019.1599719

24.

Mirer

Harker

(2021). Will the crowd go wild?: Reimagining the newspaper sports section for digital subscribers. Journalism Practice, 15(1), 63–79. https:/doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2019.1697955

25.

Oates

T. P.

Pauly

(2007). Sports journalism as moral and ethical discourse. Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 22(4), 332–347. https:/doi.org/10.1080/08900520701583628

26.

Pells

Newberry

(2009, October 3). For tweet’s sake: Sports world adjusts to new media. The Associated Press.

27.

Perez-Pena

(2009). September 28As coverage wanes, Los Angeles Kings hires its own reporter. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/business/media/28kings.html

28.

Perreault

Bell

T. R.

(2020). Towards a ‘digital’ sports journalism: Field theory, changing boundaries and evolving technologies. Communication & Sport. https:/doi.org/10.1177/2167479520979958.

29.

Popper

(2015, August 4). How baseball’s tech team built the future of television. The Verge. http://www.theverge.com/2015/8/4/9090897/mlb-bam-live-streaming-internet-tv-nhl-hbo-now-espn

30.

Revers

(2014). Journalistic professionalism as performance and boundary work: Source relations at the state house. Journal of the Society of Laparoendoscopic Surgeons, 15(1), 37–52. https:/doi.org/10.1177/1464884913480459

31.

Roberts

Emmons

(2016). Twitter in the press box: How a new technology affects game-day routines of print-focused sports journalists. International Journal of Sport Communication, 9(1), 97–115. https://doi.org/10.1123/ijsc.2015-0113

32.

Robinson

(2010). Traditionalists vs. convergers. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 16(1), 125–143. https:/doi.org/10.1177/1354856509347719

33.

Robinson

(2011). Journalism as process: The organizational implications of participatory online news. Journalism & Communication Monographs, 13(3), 137–210. https://doi.org/10.1177/152263791101300302

34.

Scherer

Jackson

S. J.

(2008). Producing allblacks.com: Cultural intermediaries and the policing of electronic spaces of sporting consumption. Sociology of Sport Journal, 25(2), 187–205. https://doi.org/10.1123/ssj.25.2.187

35.

Schudson

(2005). News as stories. In Rothenbuhler

E.W.

Coman

(Eds.), Media anthropology (pp. 121-128). Sage.

36.

Serazio

(2021). The irreverent life and uncompromising death of deadspin: Sports blogging as punk journalism. Journalism. https:/doi.org/1464884920987690.

37.

Sherwood

Nicholson

(2017). Who controls sport news? Media relations and information subsidies in Australian sport media. Media International Australia, 165(1), 146–156. https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878X17713340

38.

Sherwood

Nicholson

Marjoribanks

(2017). Controlling the message and the medium?. Digital Journalism, 5(5), 513–531. https:/doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2016.1239546

39.

Singer

J. B.

(2003). Who are these guys?. Journal of the Society of Laparoendoscopic Surgeons, 4(2), 139–163. https:/doi.org/10.1177/146488490342001

40.

Singer

J. B.

(2015). Out of bounds. In Carlson

Lewis

S.C.

(Eds), Boundaries of journalism: Professionalism, practices and participation (pp. 21–36). Routledge.

41.

Star

S. L.

Griesemer

J. R.

(1989). Institutional ecology, ‘translations’ and boundary objects: Amateurs and professionals in berkeley’s Museum of vertebrate zoology, 1907-39. Social studies of science, 19(3), 387–420. https://doi.org/10.1177/030631289019003001

42.

Suggs

D. W.

Jr. (2016). Tensions in the press box. Communication & Sport, 4(3), 261–281. https:/doi.org/10.1177/2167479515577191

43.

Wenner

L. A.

(1989). The research agenda. In Wenner

L.A.

(Ed), Media, sports & society (pp. 13–48). Sage.

44.

Wiik

(2015). Internal boundaries: The stratification of the journalistic collective. In Carlson

Lewis

S.C.

(Eds), Boundaries of journalism: Professionalism, practices and participation (pp. 119–133). Routledge.

45.

Williams

(2021, August 24). NFL closes locker rooms to all media except team-affiliated media. Pro Football Talk.com. https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2021/08/24/nfl-closes-locker-rooms-to-all-media-except-team-affiliated-media/

46.

Woodward

(1949). Sports page. Simon & Schuster.

47.

Yanity

(2013). Publishing for paydirt: A case study of an athletic department writer. International Journal of Sport Communication, 6(4), 478–489. https://doi.org/10.1123/ijsc.6.4.478

Just How They Drew It Up: How In-House Reporters Fit Themselves Into the Sports Media System

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References