Is Sports Journalism Becoming Lazy?

This article is written by an amateur expressing his opinions, nobody commissioned it or pays for it. Take that as a warning and read on if you accept this caveat.

Lazy Journalism

This football season I've had occasion to read more sports journalism than ever before, and more blogs. I'm finding that blogs are becoming much more informed, informative, insightful, and accurate. Whilst traditional sports journalism is becoming less informed, less well researched, less insightful, and in many cases almost completely inaccurate.

Is this a common trend? Can we identify a cause?

Passion

Journalists work for money, fine, no problem with that. I'm sure most do it because they also want to be journalists—probably they enjoy the act of writing, and maybe enjoy the activity they're writing about; football for example. Blog writers tend to write almost exclusively motivated by passion. Passion for the sport or club they're writing about.

Passion is often assumed to create views that are biased and one-sided, views that are littered by mistakes and irrelevant points. And some of the fly-by-night blogs can be full of defences of the supported team, and attacks of the opposing teams (and sometimes awful abuse too). But most of the respected, regularly updated blogs not only contain some great writing, but some great insights, often backed up by thorough research.

Research

I'll use as an example of poor research with the comment "Shawcross isn't that type of player" that Tony Pulis uttered on Saturday after he broke Aaron Ramsey's leg. Tony Pulis also said that self-same comment in 2007 after Shawcross broke Francis Jeffers' ankle. There are other incidents (one only has to go to YouTube to find videos) that give the lie to Pulis' comments, with but a moments simple research. Yet respected journalists and sports writers completely ignored (or didn't bother looking to find) that background. It's not my intention to hound Shawcross, but this is a classic example of the kind of lazy "I'll just repeat what I've heard, putting no thought into it" type of journalism I'm talking about.

I guess it ill-behooves a professional journalist to overtly accuse a sportsman of being unsportsmanlike, but with a moments research someone could at least provide evidence which casts doubt. They didn't and they don't. Why?

Lazy

Is it because they're lazy and simply can't be bothered to do any research? Is it because they don't care about their writing or about the content of it? Is it because they feel they can get away with any old rubbish? That last accusation may bear some merit.

Sports journalism is becoming increasingly opinionated, rather than fact-based. Traditional journalists may express opinions too of course, and if those opinions are insights into a particular facet of their sport or team, then great, because that's exactly what they should do. But when facts and research are absent, or when opinions or hearsay from elsewhere are treated as fact, that's when we should question. We should complain to either the press complaints commission (http://www.pcc.org.uk/) if we feel we have enough justification, or at least complain to the media company in question (be they a newspaper or online publisher).

Feedback

Often the feedback is by way of article comments, typically short and opinionated, or there is no feedback at all. Sometimes angry outbursts at the perpetrator simply generate more traffic to the media page website, leading to the journalist in question being praised for raising the media company's web presence. There is no independent body looking at what is published and applying critical reasoning to it. Editors want to raise profile and readership, why should they care—unless a formal complaint is made.

The thin ice is when legitimate media companies provide content written by 'journalists' they pay, but whose content is provided as 'opinion.' In other words, it's no more or less valuable than any other blog. Yet it is given higher worth in the minds of the general public exactly because it is published by a 'legitimate' media company.

Reaction

There are a number of actions you can take when you read or hear media articles that are factually incorrect, or are displaying misinformed opinion. You can switch off—simply don't watch, listen, or read that media channel anymore (whether it be radio, tv, a newspaper, or an online source). You can complain—either informally to the publisher/producer, or formally to the PCC. Or you can continue to put up with lazy, inadequate reporting. And if you put up with it, you have only yourself to blame for having to put up with it.