Interactive Media and Sports Journalists The Impact of Interactive Media on Sports Journalists

shelley wigley and patrick c. meirick This research studied the impact of interactive media on sports journalists. Sports journalists at daily newspapers (N=393) participated in a Web-based survey. Results indicate that sports journalists working at civic-minded news-papers do not place more value on citizen input nor do they pay more attention to sports talk radio and Internet message boards as a source of information or fan opinion. This may indicate that all sports journalists, no matter the type of newspaper they work for, embrace the input of regular citizens. The study produced one counterintuitive finding in that sports journalists employed at civic-minded newspapers reported less interaction with the public. A lthough a number of studies have studied the impact of civic journalism on reporters, media content and even audience members, little research has been devoted to the non-traditional, interactive media’s impact on journalists. Although several newspapers across the country have utilized the Internet to engage citizens (Bressers, 2003; Bukota, 2001; Schaffer, 2000), research that explores the Internet’s impact on journalists, both civic and traditional, is lacking. What influence does interactive media such as Internet message boards and talk radio discussions have on journalists and how they perform their jobs? Because of the high number of interactive media opportuni-ties for sports fans, including more than 600 sports talk radio stations nationwide (Eastman, 2004) and a plethora of fan-based Journal of Sports Media, Vol. 3, No.1, Spring 20082 message boards on the Internet (Strickland, 2004), the authors chose to focus on sports journalists for this research study. In fact, “ just about every team in every sport has (Web) sites dedi-cated to the opinion of fans ” (Strickland, 2004, p. 1C). There are also indications that sports journalists pay attention to interac-tive forms of media. Some sports writers document fan support by referring to callers ’ comments and predictions on sports tal