So the sports journalism apocalypse didn’t happen in 2020. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit and sports shut down across the United States, there was genuine concern about the state of the beat. How would it work when there were no games? My own research has shown that, historically, no area of journalism is as tied to its subject matter as sports journalism is to game coverage.
But as it turned out, sports journalism survived just fine. Reporters took the opportunity to get creative finding stories. There was, in fact, plenty of sports news to report on even without games.
But as we move forward into 2021, there is one element of sports journalism that threatens the profession as we know it. The Zoom interview.
As sports have returned, the usual in-person press conferences and interviews have been replaced by Zoom sessions. Instead of getting access to team locker rooms and conducting interviews there, reporters are now forced to request players from the team’s PR staff and do streaming interviews. These are, of course, necessary and understandable restrictions, given the pandemic.
But if these restrictions persist in the post-COVID world, they will fundamentally change sports journalism.
Two generations of media sociology research have demonstrated that access to sources is a fundamental aspect of journalism, and this is certainly true of sports journalism. Over the past decade, there’s been a growing cold war on this front between sports journalists and teams. Reporters’ access to players has become more limited as teams seek to exert more power and control over their messages. Players have their own social media platforms and don’t need to talk to reporters to communicate with their fans.
There’s a long and valuable discussion to be had about whether journalists should care so much about access to sources, and whether it truly serves their readers. But the fact is it does matter. In their eyes, access allows them to build relationships with the players and coaches. That’s fundamental to the way they conceptualize their jobs, whether they’re breaking news like Adrian Wojnarowski or writing features like Tyler Dunne. Access also matters as a point of professional accountability — one of the golden rules of sports journalism is that if you crush a player or coach in a column in the morning, you better show your face at the stadium that evening.
When you talk to sports reporters today, there’s a real fear that their limited access to players and coaches in 2020 will continue in the post-COVID world. That teams see a reason to keep reporters out of the locker room and away from players and coaches — and that they’ll take advantage of it. You saw this fear early in the pandemic, before leagues were shut down, when locker rooms were closed to the media. There’s a real fear among journalists that the COVID restrictions will be made permanent.
If that’s the case, it will fundamentally change sports journalism. But that’s not to say this will be a sports journalism apocalypse.
If access remains limited, it will open the door for sports journalists to find new ways to do their jobs. Maybe it will mean moving farther away from the commodified content of daily sports journalism (game story, sidebar, column) and toward telling different types of stories that don’t necessarily require access to sources. Maybe it will mean greater use of data and analytics as reporting tools. Maybe it will mean rethinking the whole notion of access as a journalistic value.
2021 will be the year sports journalism changes for good. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that those changes will be bad.
Brian Moritz is associate professor of digital media production and online journalism at SUNY Oswego and author of Sports Media Guy.
So the sports journalism apocalypse didn’t happen in 2020. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit and sports shut down across the United States, there was genuine concern about the state of the beat. How would it work when there were no games? My own research has shown that, historically, no area of journalism is as tied to its subject matter as sports journalism is to game coverage.
But as it turned out, sports journalism survived just fine. Reporters took the opportunity to get creative finding stories. There was, in fact, plenty of sports news to report on even without games.
But as we move forward into 2021, there is one element of sports journalism that threatens the profession as we know it. The Zoom interview.
As sports have returned, the usual in-person press conferences and interviews have been replaced by Zoom sessions. Instead of getting access to team locker rooms and conducting interviews there, reporters are now forced to request players from the team’s PR staff and do streaming interviews. These are, of course, necessary and understandable restrictions, given the pandemic.
But if these restrictions persist in the post-COVID world, they will fundamentally change sports journalism.
Two generations of media sociology research have demonstrated that access to sources is a fundamental aspect of journalism, and this is certainly true of sports journalism. Over the past decade, there’s been a growing cold war on this front between sports journalists and teams. Reporters’ access to players has become more limited as teams seek to exert more power and control over their messages. Players have their own social media platforms and don’t need to talk to reporters to communicate with their fans.
There’s a long and valuable discussion to be had about whether journalists should care so much about access to sources, and whether it truly serves their readers. But the fact is it does matter. In their eyes, access allows them to build relationships with the players and coaches. That’s fundamental to the way they conceptualize their jobs, whether they’re breaking news like Adrian Wojnarowski or writing features like Tyler Dunne. Access also matters as a point of professional accountability — one of the golden rules of sports journalism is that if you crush a player or coach in a column in the morning, you better show your face at the stadium that evening.
When you talk to sports reporters today, there’s a real fear that their limited access to players and coaches in 2020 will continue in the post-COVID world. That teams see a reason to keep reporters out of the locker room and away from players and coaches — and that they’ll take advantage of it. You saw this fear early in the pandemic, before leagues were shut down, when locker rooms were closed to the media. There’s a real fear among journalists that the COVID restrictions will be made permanent.
If that’s the case, it will fundamentally change sports journalism. But that’s not to say this will be a sports journalism apocalypse.
If access remains limited, it will open the door for sports journalists to find new ways to do their jobs. Maybe it will mean moving farther away from the commodified content of daily sports journalism (game story, sidebar, column) and toward telling different types of stories that don’t necessarily require access to sources. Maybe it will mean greater use of data and analytics as reporting tools. Maybe it will mean rethinking the whole notion of access as a journalistic value.
2021 will be the year sports journalism changes for good. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that those changes will be bad.
Brian Moritz is associate professor of digital media production and online journalism at SUNY Oswego and author of Sports Media Guy.
Catalina Albeanu Publish less, listen more
An Xiao Mina 2020 isn’t a black swan — it’s a yellow canary
Ben Werdmuller The web blooms again
Zizi Papacharissi The year we rebuild the infrastructure of truth
Mandy Jenkins You build trust by helping your readers
Hadjar Benmiloud Get representative, or die trying
Julia B. Chan and Kim Bui Millennials are ready to run things
Cherian George Enter the lamb warriors
Sam Ford We’ll find better ways to archive our work
John Garrett A surprisingly good year
Alfred Hermida and Oscar Westlund The virus ups data journalism’s game
Michael W. Wagner Fractured democracy, fractured journalism
Ariel Zirulnick Local newsrooms question their paywalls
Joanne McNeil Newsrooms push back against Ivy League cronyism
Tonya Mosley True equity means ownership
Charo Henríquez A new path to leadership
Masuma Ahuja We’ll remember how interconnected our world is
Mark S. Luckie Newsrooms and streaming services get cozy
Eric Nuzum Podcasting dodged a bullet in 2020, but 2021 will be harder
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen Stop pretending publishers are a united front
Jessica Clark News becomes plural
Nico Gendron Ask your readers to help build your products
John Saroff Covid sparks the growth of independent local news sites
Brandy Zadrozny Misinformation fatigue sets in
Tauhid Chappell and Mike Rispoli Defund the crime beat
Tamar Charney Public radio has a midlife crisis
Raney Aronson-Rath To get past information divides, we need to understand them first
Brian Moritz The year sports journalism changes for good
Doris Truong Indigenous issues get long-overdue mainstream coverage
Anthony Nadler Journalism struggles to find a new model of legitimacy
Delia Cai Subscriptions start working for the middle
Talmon Joseph Smith The media rejects deficit hawkery
Sarah Stonbely Videoconferencing brings more geographic diversity
Tanya Cordrey Declining trust forces publishers to claim (or disclaim) values
Kawandeep Virdee Goodbye, doomscroll
Jesse Holcomb Genre erosion in nonprofit journalism
Candis Callison Calling it a crisis isn’t enough (if it ever was)
Patrick Butler Covid-19 reporting has prepared us for cross-border collaboration
Marissa Evans Putting community trauma into context
Sonali Prasad Making disaster journalism that cuts through the noise
Jacqué Palmer The rise of the plain-text email newsletter
Parker Molloy The press will risk elevating a Shadow President Trump
Matt Skibinski Misinformation won’t stop unless we stop it
Anna Nirmala Local news orgs grasp the urgency of community roots
Robert Hernandez Data and shame
Bill Adair The future of fact-checking is all about structured data
Renée Kaplan Falling in love with your subscription
Cory Bergman The year after a thousand earthquakes
Mark Stenberg The rise of the journalist-influencer
Mariano Blejman It’s time to challenge autocompleted journalism
Gonzalo del Peon Collaborations expand from newsrooms to the business side
Samantha Ragland The year of journalists taking initiative
Colleen Shalby The definition of good journalism shifts
Jeremy Gilbert Human-centered journalism
Jonas Kaiser Toward a wehrhafte journalism
Jennifer Choi What have we done for you lately?
Christoph Mergerson Black Americans will demand more from journalism
Natalie Meade Journalism enters rehab
Benjamin Toff Beltway reporting gets normal again, for better and for worse
Annie Rudd Newsrooms grow less comfortable with the “view from above”
Richard Tofel Less on politics, more on how government works (or doesn’t)
Matt DeRienzo Citizen truth brigades steer us back toward reality
Alicia Bell and Simon Galperin Media reparations now
Linda Solomon Wood Canada steps up for journalism
Burt Herman Journalists build post-Facebook digital communities
Imaeyen Ibanga Journalism gets unmasked
David Chavern Local video finally gets momentum
Joshua P. Darr Legislatures will tackle the local news crisis
Nonny de la Pena News reaches the third dimension
Danielle C. Belton A decimated media rededicates itself to truth
Sue Cross A global consensus around the kind of news we need to save
Gordon Crovitz Common law will finally apply to the Internet
Laura E. Davis The focus turns to newsroom leaders for lasting change
Jean Friedman-Rudovsky and Cassie Haynes A shift from conversation to action
Steve Henn Has independent podcasting peaked?
Rick Berke Virtual events are here to stay
Rachel Glickhouse Journalists will be kinder to each other — and to themselves
Edward Roussel Tech companies get aggressive in local
Janet Haven and Sam Hinds Is this an AI newsroom?
Andrew Donohue The rise of the democracy beat
Rodney Gibbs Zooming beyond talking heads
John Davidow Reflect and repent
Chicas Poderosas More voices mean better information
Astead W. Herndon The Trump-sized window of the media caring about race closes again
Kevin D. Grant Parachute journalism goes away for good
Heidi Tworek A year of news mocktails
Stefanie Murray and Anthony Advincula Expect to see more translations and non-English content
Whitney Phillips Facts are an insufficient response to falsehoods
Mike Ananny Toward better tech journalism
María Sánchez Díez Traffic will plummet — and it’ll be ok
Rishad Patel From direct-to-consumer to direct-to-believers
Jennifer Brandel A sneak peak at power mapping, 2073’s top innovation
José Zamora Walking the talk on diversity
David Skok A pandemic-prompted wave of consolidation
M. Scott Havens Traditional pay TV will embrace the disruption
Celeste Headlee The rise of radical newsroom transparency
Sara M. Watson Return of the RSS reader
Garance Franke-Ruta Rebundling content, rebuilding connections
Aaron Foley Diversity gains haven’t shown up in local news
Taylor Lorenz Journalists will learn influencing isn’t easy
Alyssa Zeisler Holistic medicine for journalism
Bo Hee Kim Newsrooms create an intentional and collaborative culture
Francesca Tripodi Don’t expect breaking up Google and Facebook to solve our information woes
Andrew Ramsammy Stop being polite and start getting real
Moreno Cruz Osório In Brazil, a push for pluralism
Hossein Derakhshan Mass personalization of truth
Pablo Boczkowski Audiences have revolted. Will newsrooms adapt?
Logan Jaffe History as a reporting tool
Julia Angwin Show your (computational) work
Pia Frey Building growth through tastemakers and their communities
Errin Haines Let’s normalize women’s leadership
Beena Raghavendran Journalism gets fused with art
Shaydanay Urbani and Nancy Watzman Local collaboration is key to slowing misinformation
Juleyka Lantigua The download, podcasting’s metric king, gets dethroned
C.W. Anderson Journalism changed under Trump — will it keep changing under Biden?
Rachel Schallom The rise of nonprofit journalism continues
Marcus Mabry News orgs adapt to a post-Trump world (with Trump still in it)
Ray Soto The news gets spatial
Victor Pickard The commercial era for local journalism is over
Amara Aguilar Journalism schools emphasize listening
J. Siguru Wahutu Journalists still wrongly think the U.S. is different
Jer Thorp Fewer pixels, more cardboard
Nabiha Syed Newsrooms quit their toxic relationships
Francesco Zaffarano The year we ask the audience what it needs
Jody Brannon People won’t renew
Zainab Khan From understanding to feeling
Chase Davis The year we look beyond The Story
Tim Carmody Spotify will make big waves in video
Nikki Usher Don’t expect an antitrust dividend for the media
Gabe Schneider Another year of empty promises on diversity
Sarah Marshall The year audiences need extra cheer
Megan McCarthy Readers embrace a low-information diet
Loretta Chao Open up the profession
Cindy Royal J-school grads maintain their optimism and adaptability
Ernie Smith Entrepreneurship on rails
Meredith D. Clark The year journalism starts paying reparations
Ariane Bernard Going solo is still only a path for the few
Sumi Aggarwal News literacy programs aren’t child’s play
Don Day Business first, journalism second
Ben Collins We need to learn how to talk to (and about) accidental conspiracists
Kerri Hoffman Protecting podcasting’s open ecosystem
Kristen Muller Engaged journalism scales
Nicholas Jackson Blogging is back, but better
Joni Deutsch Local arts and music make journalism more joyous
Marie Shanahan Journalism schools stop perpetuating the status quo
Kate Myers My son will join every Zoom call in our industry
Jim Friedlich A newspaper renaissance reached by stopping the presses
John Ketchum More journalists of color become newsroom founders
Nisha Chittal The year we stop pivoting
Ståle Grut Network analysis enters the journalism toolbox
Mike Caulfield 2021’s misinformation will look a lot like 2020’s (and 2019’s, and…)
Ashton Lattimore Remote work helps level the playing field in an insular industry