Page 74 - Sport Culture and the Media

WORKING IN MEDIA SPORT || 55

I think, perhaps, they’re treated better in Britain than we are here, we’re all
dying to be treated the way they are in America, where they’re generally
seen as the top echelon of journalism in sport over there, and it would
be lovely to be felt that way here. But people generally assume, that have
nothing to do with it, that it’s much easier than other forms of journalism,
and because it’s sport, it’s a physical activity, that there’s nothing intel-
lectual about it. It’s not true, I did all the other things when I was a cadet,
but the thing that gave me most stimulation was sports writing. You have
the most freedom, you make many more decisions on your own about how
it should be approached, and particularly now that sport is so professional,
you have to know about finance and economics and courts, because
it’s always ending up in the courts these days, and you’ve got to be able to
encompass all those areas. If you can’t do that then you’re not going to
survive in professional sports. The way it is, you really have to be able
to turn your hand to anything, and you’ve also got to be a good writer,
because sport is a very descriptive type of writing, expressive, you’ve got
to be able to make people feel that they were there. So, that’s why I like it, it
just gives you so much [more] breadth than the other sections.
(Nancy)

Like virtually every interviewee in the study, this sports journalist was keen to
assert the degree of difficulty and required skill of the specialism. Journalists,
editors and other sports writers are often frustrated and resentful about their
professional standing, and anxious to improve it. The shifting positions of
sport in the general cultural hierarchy and in the narrower culture of journalism
are the determinants of the standing of sports journalism. In Chapter 1, we
noted how sport in its various forms, at different historical moments, is claimed
by different social groups. Dominant groups (such as the nineteenth-century
British aristocracy and the twentieth-century bourgeoisie) have often embraced
sport and prescribed approved forms of it for subordinate groups in the inter-
ests of character building, discharging ‘unhealthy’ urges, physical fitness, and
so on (Ingham and Loy 1993). We have also seen that great sporting events,
especially when carried simultaneously to all parts of the country by the
electronic media, have contributed vitally to the process of nation building
(Whannel 1992). Yet the very popularity of many sports, the possibilities they
offer of an inclusive cultural democracy, have made them also questionable to
social elites, especially when they have moved beyond the noble ‘disinterested
practice’ of amateurism (Bourdieu 1978) into the less edifying world of mass
entertainment.
Sport’s reliance on the moving body has also been at odds with those who
have developed a culture of refinement through aesthetics and contemplation,