Abstract
This article reports on research that explores whether Australian newspaper sport journalists use Web 2.0, the second generation of the internet, in their work and, if they do, how. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 27 newspaper sport journalists, three from each of the nine Australian daily newspapers with the highest circulation. The research found that the most common Web 2.0 platforms used by Australian newspaper sport journalists in their everyday work practices were Twitter, fan forums and Facebook. While each is used differently for reporting, sourcing and researching news, and for interacting with readers, this study found that most sports journalists used this technology within the boundaries of traditional journalistic practices and norms.
Introduction
Given that journalism has been regarded as ‘a dominant force in the public construction of common experience’ (Schudson, 2003: 13), it is not surprising that questions about what news is, who journalists are, and how they work to construct news have emerged as a strong field of research (Berkowitz, 1997; Schudson, 2003; Zelizer, 2004). Despite a body of literature spanning decades that reveals that the central professional values that underpin journalism have not changed (Altmeppen, 2008; Breed, 1955; Deuze, 2005; Fishman, 1980; Gans, 1979; Machin and Niblock, 2006; O’Neill and Harcup, 2001; Schudson, 2003; Shoemaker and Vos, 2009; Tuchman, 1973; White, 1950), it is clear that the ways in which journalists do their work have been subject to change. These changes are often driven by technology – the printing press, typewriter, telephone, radio and television each had an impact on researching, sourcing and reporting the news. There is evidence, albeit embryonic, which suggests that the current agent of change, Web 2.0, may have the greatest impact of all (Hirst, 2011; Rosenberg and Feldman, 2008).
While a clear definition of Web 2.0 is hard to agree on, particularly as it is difficult to pinpoint a date when the web moved into this ‘second generation’, as Cormode and Krishnamurthy (2008) stated ‘there is a clear separation between a set of highly popular Web 2.0 sites such as Facebook and YouTube and the “old web”’. This research uses Cormode and Krishnamurthy (2008)’s definition of Web 2.0 as ‘both a platform on which innovative technologies have been built and a space where users are treated as first class objects’. The major difference from the first generation of the internet, Web 1.0, and Web 2.0 is the level of interaction and accessibility for users (Cormode and Krishnamurthy, 2008; Hirst, 2011; O’Reilly, 2007; Song, 2010). The internet is no longer a system in which most users can simply be regarded as content consumers. Now anyone can be a content creator, or as Bruns (2008b) suggests, all participants have become ‘produsers’ – both consumers and producers of content. Within this new collaborative online environment, there are specific platforms that have been more widely and quickly adopted than others.
The term Web 2.0 was selected as the overarching framework for this study as its aim was to explore which new media platforms sports journalists are using, and not limit it to a single or specific platform or genre of new media. This article seeks to identify which of these new Web 2.0 generation of platforms are being utilised by a specialist cohort, sport journalists, in a specific setting, Australian newspapers. In doing so it seeks to contribute to a burgeoning literature that examines the uses and impacts of ‘new’ media by and on journalists.
A defining feature of Web 2.0 is the social network, of which Facebook is the leading platform. Launched in February 2004, it now has 800 million users worldwide (Facebook, 2011; Parr, 2011). The social networking service allows users to ‘friend’ other users, share text updates (labelled status updates), photos and private messages, with a large emphasis on interacting online through ‘liking’ and commenting on the ‘status’ of friends. On average, two billion posts are ‘liked’ and commented on each and every day, and 250 million photos are uploaded (Buck, 2011b). The use of Facebook in Australia is also significant; in a country where 80.2 percent of the population has access to the internet, 66.8 percent of these internet users are on the social networking site (Buck, 2011a). The other major Web 2.0 platform is Twitter, a microblogging service that allows users to publish ‘tweets’ of 140 characters, and interact through tools such as ‘@ replies’, which allow a user to tag another user, and ‘hashtags’, whereby placing a hash (#) in front of a word or phrase turns it into a searchable link. Popular topics, which can be either a hashtag or word, are labelled trends. Twitter was launched in 2006 and in September 2011 announced it had reached the 100 million active user milestone, with 50 million people logging on every day (Tsukayama, 2011). Other popular Web 2.0 platforms are blogs and fan forums, which allow users to create threads, reply to messages and chat with other fans on a text-based platform, and YouTube, an online video service that allows people to discover, watch and share originally created videos (YouTube, 2011).
These Web 2.0 platforms have fundamentally changed communication in the 21st century and therefore, as an industry whose primary message is to communicate, it is not surprising they have been quickly adopted by the media. In a short period of time, these platforms have moved from optional to essential, as illustrated by the following quote from the BBC’s Director of global media news, Peter Horrocks, who told his staff when he was appointed in 2010 that ‘This isn’t just a kind of fad from someone who’s an enthusiast of technology. I’m afraid you’re not doing your job if you can’t do those things. It’s not discretionary’ (Bunz, 2010).
There is an emerging field of research that explores the impact of Web 2.0 on journalism. In particular, it focuses on what the new level of interactivity means for: the role of journalists as gatekeepers; source relationships; ethics in the online space; how online platforms have impacted work practices; how speed is impacting on journalistic values; and the use of Twitter to research, source and report (Ahmad, 2010; Deuze, 1999; Farhi, 2009; Hermida, 2010; Lasorsa et al., 2011; Mitchelstein and Boczkowski, 2009; Phillips, 2010; Posetti, 2009; Reinardy, 2010, 2011; Singer, 1997; Ursell, 2001). One of the overarching themes of this research is that while journalists are essentially adopting these new Web 2.0 platforms within the boundaries of traditional journalistic values, the boundaries are shifting. While some suggest these changes in the traditional journalistic paradigm have changed newswork and values for the better, making it more transparent and based on what audiences want (Anderson WB, 2011) the rise of Web 2.0 has coincided with what some are calling the death of journalism and the rise of ‘churnalism’ (Davies, 2008; Hirst, 2011), where speed is more important than fact-checking.
There is also a body of research that suggest that Web 2.0 platforms are perhaps having the most impact on newspaper journalists (Garrison, 2001; Harcup and Cole, 2010; Reinardy, 2010, 2011; Rowe, 2011; Young, 2010). At the same time, newspaper sport journalists are the largest speciality in Australian journalism (Henningham, 1995), yet there is a paucity of research that has explored the relationship between sport journalists and Web 2.0 platforms. The research reported in this article therefore sought to explore how sport journalists use Web 2.0 platforms in their daily work. In doing so it is hoped that this research might contribute to the debate about the impact of Web 2.0 platforms on the media more generally, as well as provide insights into the work practices of a specific yet influential cohort of journalists.
Work practices, Web 2.0 platforms and sport journalism
Until the late 20th century, journalism research focused almost exclusively on the end result – content and how audiences interact with it – and gave little attention to the production of news. Breed (1955) and White (1950) were two exceptions who established an early theoretical foundation to the study of newsmaking via in-depth qualitative studies. While these seminal studies offered the first exploration of the different factors that influence the production of news, it wasn’t until the late 20th century that the scope of research was widened with more ethnographic research and case studies (Berkowitz, 1997; Loffelholz and Weaver, 2008). However, there is an agreement within the literature that news does not just happen, but rather is a product of the interactions that occur among and between people, processes and organisations. Different theoretical approaches have been used to explore why news is produced in the way it is; however, there appears to be a common consensus that journalism is newswork, a routinised process (Deuze, 2005; Hanitzsch, 2007; Shoemaker and Reese, 1996; Shoemaker and Vos, 2009).
The concept of journalism as newswork contends that journalists work to a routine, which is organised according to a set of shared cultural ideas, professional guidelines and systems of news values. Altmeppen (2008) argued that organisation has been a fundamental part of the newsroom since its inception, stating that a journalist’s work routine is predetermined, there are rules for gathering and selecting news, and work routines in regards to news selection and work flow. Even though these ‘rules’ are often unspoken, journalists somehow inherently understand and abide by them. Breed (1955) observed these rules in his study of social control in the newsroom – stating that these journalists observe the routine and copy it – and contended that this is the way management and editors reinforce editorial policy. However, three other landmark studies in this field (Fishman, 1980; Gans, 1979; Tuchman, 1973) concluded that these rules and routines are simply the ways that get things done. Tuchman (1973) stated that control is an important theme in all sociological studies of work and it is of particular importance in journalism, as it is a profession that thrives on unexpected events. Creating a work routine for these unexpected events simply ensures that covering them is possible.
There is evidence to suggest that journalists have adopted Web 2.0 platforms in their everyday work and that they have had an impact on these established routines. Pavlik (2000) contended that technology has changed journalism in four ways: the content of news; the structure or organisation of the newsroom; the relationships between or among news organisations, journalists and their many publics; and how journalists do their work. Since then there have been studies that show that technology has had an impact on the organisation of the newsroom (Gade and Perry, 2003; Konstantinos and Roger, 2008) and the content of news (Maier, 2010), but the two largest areas of research have examined the relationship between news organisations, journalists and the public (with the rise of the citizen journalist threatening traditional media roles) and how journalists actually do their work. In the research that examines the rise of the audience as a content producer or ‘produser’, studies have explored how citizen journalists create news and challenge the traditional gatekeeper (Bruns, 2005, 2008b; Reich, 2008; Robinson and DeShano, 2011), and how journalists have reacted to this new development (Anderson WB, 2011; Bruns, 2008a; Deuze et al., 2007; Phillips, 2010; Singer, 2003, 2006; Thurman, 2008). By contrast, the research is mixed in terms of the effect of Web 2.0 platforms on the ways in which journalists do their work. For example, O’Sullivan and Heinonen (2008) found that journalists from 11 different European countries used online platforms as their primary research tool, a positive development in a profession that is time poor. On the other hand, there is research that contends that Web 2.0 has changed work practices for the worse. For example, Reinardy (2010) suggested that the speed required to file stories for online platforms, rather than a later newspaper deadline, clashes with traditional journalistic values.
The Web 2.0 platform that has attracted the most academic attention is Twitter. Initial studies noted the ways in which users utilised Twitter as a system to share news (Java et al., 2009). This emerging field of research has broadened to examine how journalists use Twitter, as well as its impact on source relationships and objectivity (Ahmad, 2010; Farhi, 2009; Hermida, 2010; Lasorsa et al., 2011). Hermida (2010) introduced the concept of Twitter as ‘ambient journalism’, drawing on literature in computer science to argue that new platforms like Twitter are ‘awareness systems’, which provide journalists with more complex ways of understanding and reporting. Hermida (2010: 298) stated that Twitter ‘helps to facilitate a new model of the accepted news model, one where sources are no longer always official’.
In contrast to the literature that suggests new technologies and platforms such as Twitter have changed work practices, several studies contend that this new technology has simply been adapted into traditional journalistic practices. In a study of political j-blogs, or blogs written by journalists, Singer (2005) found that despite the blog platform calling for a more opinionated, less formal and more interactive style, journalists remained gatekeepers and adhered to other traditional norms and practices. In a study of journalists on Twitter, Lasorsa et al. (2011) found that while some journalists expressed opinion more frequently on the microblogging website, journalists who worked for elite news outlets – such as national newspapers – were less likely to relinquish the gatekeeping role. They were also less likely to engage in the features that Twitter allows, such as interacting with other users, linking to external websites and sharing personal information – which are all prominent features of all Web 2.0 platforms (Cormode and Krishnamurthy, 2008).
The changing nature of journalism newswork has important implications for the specific cohort of sport journalists. While sport media has been recognised as a significant influence on society (Boyle and Haynes, 2000; Cashmore, 2005; Rowe, 2004; Whannel, 2002), the journalists who cover it have been subjected to what Surface (1972) labelled ‘the shame of the sports beat’. Surface contended that sport journalists are little more than cheerleaders who have unprofessional relationships with sources – although provided little theory or methodology to support this – and the field has suffered criticism since. While Telander (1984) suggested that the player–press relationship has become one of conflict, this focus on the close relationship with sources has meant that almost all of the sport journalism literature is centred on professionalism and whether or not sport journalists can consider themselves professionals (Anderson C, 2001; Anderson DA, 1983; Bourgeois, 1995; Garrison and Salwen, 1989, 1994; Hardin, 2005; Henningham, 1995; McCleneghan, 1990; Nicholson et al., 2011; Reinardy, 2006; Rowe, 2007; Salwen and Garrison, 1998). While this previous research has addressed who sport journalists are (Garrison and Salwen [1989, 1984]; Henningham [1995] and Nicholson et al. [2011] state the average sport journalist in America and Australia is young, white and male) and the content of sport journalism texts (Rowe, 2007), there have been few studies, although significant, that have examined how sport journalists actually research, source and report, and whether or not they have the same institutionalised work routines as their news counterparts (see e.g. Hardin, 2005; Knoppers and Elling, 2004; Lowes, 1999; Theberge and Cronk, 1986).
Given that the major feature of Web 2.0 is its level of interactivity, and the evidence to suggest the introduction of Web 2.0 platforms is fundamentally changing how athletes and sport organisations communicate with fans (Hutchins, 2011; Mikosza and Hutchins, 2010; Poor, 2006), there has been little research that identifies how sport journalists are using these platforms. The impact of Web 2.0 on journalism has become a large focus in media research, while the need for more studies on sport and media has been often cited since an attempt to establish a research agenda 20 years ago (Blain and Bernstein, 2003). However, to date there is only a small body of research that addresses how Web 2.0 is affecting the wider sport media landscape (English, 2011; Hutchins, 2011; Hutchins and Rowe, 2010; Mikosza and Hutchins, 2010; Poor, 2006; Rowe and Hutchins, 2009) and an even smaller body of work that examines sport journalists and how they use Web 2.0. There has been one study on online sport journalists, which examined who they are and what they see their role is (Lange et al., 2007), and another on how sport journalists use Twitter to report news in America and whether sport journalists who blog cling to traditional values, (Schultz and Sheffer, 2007; Sheffer and Schultz, 2010). To date there have been no qualitative studies into how newspaper sport journalists in Australia are using the entire scope of Web 2.0 to research, source and report. This study aims to address this research gap.
Method
The focus of this study was to explore whether Australian newspaper sport journalists are using Web 2.0 platforms in their everyday work routines and how this might be affecting routine newswork. A purposive sample of Australian newspaper sport journalists was recruited from Australia’s nine biggest newspapers (measured by circulation) – The Age, Herald Sun, The Sydney Morning Herald, Daily Telegraph, Courier Mail, The Advertiser, West Australian, The Canberra Times and The Australian. These newspapers were chosen because collectively they represent over 90 per cent circulation of Australian daily newspapers; they are the largest newspapers in Australia’s largest cities. Prospective research participants were identified by searching the by-lines in each of the newspaper’s sport pages over a week-long period in June 2011. Initial contact was made via publicly available contact details, inviting them to participate in the study. A total of 72 emails were sent, with a follow-up email within a week. A total of 29 journalists accepted the invitation to participate, a 40 per cent response rate. In order to ensure one newspaper’s participants did not significantly influence the sample, the first three respondents from each newspaper were selected, which gave a final sample of 27, equivalent to 37.5 per cent of sport journalists from these nine Australian newspapers.
Semi-structured in-depth interviews of 30 minutes duration, on average, were conducted with all 27 research participants; 19 of the interviews were conducted face-to-face in Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne, while a further eight interviews were conducted via telephone with participants located in Perth, Adelaide and Sydney. The interviews were digitally recorded, then transcribed. The transcripts were subsequently analysed using the thematic content analysis and qualitative coding software NVivo, and standard qualitative coding procedures recommended by Miles and Huberman (1994). The first stage was to identify, and code, which Web 2.0 platforms Australian newspaper sport journalists were using and then how they were using it. Using NVivo, free nodes were developed throughout the initial stage of axial coding. These codes were then developed into tree nodes. Each tree node was the name of a Web 2.0 platform, with nodes for the most common Web 2.0 platforms used by journalists – Twitter, Facebook and fan forums. In the second stage of coding, each tree node was then expanded into three different nodes, coded ‘research’, ‘source’ and ‘report’, to separate how journalists were using these platforms across the news gathering, sourcing and reporting process. Finally, the results were compared to the existing literature on sport journalism newswork and Web 2.0 and journalism newswork to test the findings.
Pseudonyms for both journalists and their papers have been used throughout to protect the anonymity of the journalists who agreed to participate in the study.
Findings
The three most commonly identified Web 2.0 platforms that emerged in the interviews were Twitter, fan forums and Facebook. To examine these platforms in further detail, the specific ways in which sport journalists were using these platforms were explored in detail. This process and the findings are represented in Table 1, a reordered table that is a visual representation of the most common themes in the use of Web 2.0 platforms. Each row represents the interview number, while each column represents a particular Web 2.0 platform and the way that journalists use them. For example, the heading ‘Twitter Research’ refers to instances in which the sport journalist spoke about using Twitter to research. ‘Source’ refers to using content from a specific platform as a source in their own story, while ‘report’ means sport journalists discussed using these Web 2.0 platforms to report a story. ‘Interaction’ refers to using the particular Web 2.0 platform to interact with readers. There is an additional heading for Twitter that refers to followers. Each of these themes is discussed in greater detail below.
Reordered table of Web 2.0 platforms.
Twitter was the most commonly discussed Web 2.0 platform across all 27 interviews. Sport journalists said they used the microblogging platform to research, source, report and interact with readers, but using Twitter to research was the most commonly discussed issue. This was emphasised by the fact that 20 out of the 27 sport journalists in this study had their own personal Twitter account, but 25 out of 27 claimed they used Twitter to research. The most prominent use of Twitter by journalists was monitoring the news: 18 of the 20 journalists who had a Twitter account said they visited the site multiple times a day, mostly to just to see ‘what’s happening’. For example, Adam from the Ledger stated that scanning Twitter had become the first thing he did in the morning, before consuming traditional media like radio, television or newspapers.
The ability to monitor news was also behind the decision of journalists to follow other people on Twitter. Almost all of the sport journalists in the study follow a mix of other journalists, media organisations, sport organisations, athlete managers, athletes and coaches. Four sport journalists, Walter from the Inquirer, Bruce and Clark from the Argus, and David from the Bugle noted in addition that the ability to keep track of overseas athletes via Twitter was valuable. Apart from simply monitoring, four journalists said Twitter gave an extra personal dimension that allowed them to further develop stories, or hook into another story. For example, Jack from the Dispatch noted how, when attempting to get an interview with a player for a story about an injury, he was put onto another story about the player’s impending fatherhood through their Twitter feed.
However, six sport journalists – Frank from the Monitor, Lachlan from the Dispatch, Alan from the Argus, Neil from the Examiner, Tom from the Inquirer and Fred from the Bugle – explained that they did not follow athletes, because they did not find them ‘newsworthy’ enough. Frank stated that ‘I think it’s a pretty rare day where some player [tweets] anything newsworthy’, while Lachlan said he deliberately did not follow athletes he covered in his round because he didn’t want his Twitter feed to become ‘clogged up’: Neil from the Examiner explained that he followed media because they had more interesting things to say than the athletes he reported on, who in his opinion were mostly ‘stupid’, ‘dumb’ and ‘boring’, which indicates that the use of Twitter by these journalists could become a self-serving and mutually dependent exercise in which they only follow what their learned colleagues are tweeting.
The use of Twitter to report a story was the second most discussed theme across all Web 2.0 platforms; 21 out of the 27 sport journalists spoke about either using Twitter to report, or why they wouldn’t use Twitter to report. Those sport journalists who used Twitter to actually report news noted that it had become a competitive advantage. Alan from the Argus stated that it was a way to get an advantage on the competition:
Yesterday at the [name deleted] press conference I sort of walked in, spoke to their media manager and he said ‘Oh there is only one change in the team, Tom is out and Sam is in,’ so I just got on Twitter and posted that as soon as he told me, just so we had something ahead of what anyone else had at that stage.
However, six sport journalists said that they would never break news on Twitter, because it wasn’t directly associated with their respective newspapers. This was summed up by Keith from the Dispatch who stated: ‘You break stories in newspapers because you are paid by the newspaper to do that. Twitter doesn’t pay you to do that, so I can’t see the benefit in doing that.’
The third largest area of discussion when it came to Twitter was the use of the microblogging service as a source. The majority of sport journalists, 15 out of 27, emphasised that they would always seek to verify something said on Twitter before using it in their own story. All 15 of these journalists stated that a phone call or face-to-face interview was still the best way to source, and that you could never rely on any third party source 100 per cent. Lachlan from the Dispatch detailed he had gone to follow a story about an Australian player who had signed to play Rugby League in England, but after speaking to the player confirmed he hadn’t actually signed yet: ‘It still always pays to check, to go to, if you can – go to the source and check the facts and confirm even if it has been reported [by] someone else that it’s right.’ Two other journalists, Jack from the Dispatch and Frank from the Monitor, emphasised that despite a focus on urgency and breaking stories first, they still focused on getting things right. However, 12 of the 27 sport journalists also said that they would use Twitter as a source in their own story, if actually speaking to an athlete or coach was impossible. Jack from the Dispatch made clear it would be a ‘last resort’, while Mark from the Examiner stated this was becoming more common, as the ability to speak directly to athletes or coaches for quotes had become more difficult.
A total of 18 out of the 20 journalists who have their own Twitter accounts spoke about using the platform to interact with followers, with the majority stating that this was positive. Apart from the ability to gauge the opinion of the public, these sport journalists detailed that tweeting was a way to show more of their personality and engage with readers. Frank at the Monitor noted that even though his newspaper’s masthead was in his Twitter handle, it was a forum in which he could be less formal: ‘The other thing I’ve really aimed to do is not to be too serious on Twitter, I think it’s a place where the formalities go out the door a little bit.’
Fan forums
The use of fan forums emerged as a key theme, with 12 of the 27 sport journalists claiming that they used fan forums in their everyday work. Most sport journalists who used fan forums to research did so as a gauge of public opinion; Keith from the Dispatch clarified he wasn’t finding ‘hard news’, but instead was seeking to understand fan reactions: ‘It’s not really hard news information, just looking at what the fans are thinking.’ David from the Bugle explained it offered a real understanding of what the fans thought, something he had guessed wrongly before. A few other journalists took this idea further, explaining that they didn’t just seek an understanding of the reaction of fans, but also looked for ideas from fans. Bruce from the Argus said that there was valuable opinion and knowledge in the fan community and ‘I think that probably the days where the journalists could be a class of experts and everyone else would sort of take their opinion, well they are long gone.’ Greg from the Citizen took that a step further, saying that he took an idea posted on a fan forum and used it in his own work.
Another reason why fan forums were useful was given by Clark from the Argus, who explained he knew of instances where the fans on fan forums were actually club insiders, which meant that they couldn’t be ignored as a source: ‘Some fans know more than me, ’cos sometimes they aren’t fans, sometimes they are insiders who want a way to get their stuff out and air their dirty laundry.’ Greg from the Citizen also confirmed this, stating he knew of a case in 2011 where an Australian sporting club chief executive had participated in a fan forum, posing as a fan, to respond to criticism of him: ‘There is no doubt that organisations do seek to shape messages and that’s just one way they do it.’
However, most sport journalists stated that while there is some worthwhile information on fan forums, they were reluctant to source directly from them as the fans who frequent fan forums are ‘extremist’, or ‘hardcore’. Derek from the Monitor believed that the fans that posted on fan forums were from ‘left field’ and the ‘hardcore’ type of fan. Both Bruce from the Argus and Roger from the Gazette used the word ‘extremist’ to describe the fans on internet forums. Of those sport journalists who didn’t visit fan forums, the reasons were that the fan forums often contained personal criticism of the journalists, or that the fan forums were not as important for a general sport journalist who did not have a beat. It was clear from the interviews that sport journalists did not use fan forums to interact or report; none of the 27 journalists stated that they had posted on a fan forum.
Facebook is one of the defining social media tools of the Web 2.0 age and 22 out of the 27 sport journalists reported that they have a Facebook account. However, the overwhelmingly majority do not use Facebook in their everyday work routines. Instead, when questioned about Facebook, 17 out of the 27 sport journalists negatively compared Facebook to Twitter. Most of the journalists in this study deemed Facebook to be a private social media platform, and not for work, while Twitter was public and often only used for work. A total of seven out of 27 journalists said they had used Facebook to research and report but information was always obtained from public profiles – or profiles where the security settings had not been set to private – and were accessible to everyone. None of these seven journalists had an ethical problem with accessing information in this way, as Lachlan from the Dispatch illustrated: ‘If your Facebook security is open and everyone can see your pictures and your profile you can only assume that’s what people want, that people want it to be like that, so I can’t see why not.’ Tom from the Inquirer added that before players and clubs became aware of security settings, ‘Facebook was a goldmine, players weren’t really aware of their security settings, they were really lax, so you could access their walls, their photos, we could see whatever we wanted.’ Brian from the Ledger claimed he had directly used photos from Facebook pages in a story, and would do so again, despite the fact that his actions had resulted in the players closing their Facebook accounts.
A private Facebook page, which is only accessible to other Facebook ‘friends’, was a different ethical matter for these sport journalists. Only one of the 22 sport journalists with a Facebook account said that if they were friends with an athlete, they would use something that athlete posted on Facebook in a story. The rest stated it would be unethical and that if they were friends with an athlete, they wouldn’t use anything from their profile without seeking their permission first, or not at all.
Discussion and conclusion
The use of Twitter was the most discussed issue throughout the interviews, an unsurprising result given the emerging field of literature that addresses its use in newswork (Ahmad, 2010; Farhi, 2009; Hermida, 2010; Lasorsa et al., 2011). More significant was that even though only 20 journalists had their own Twitter account, 25 discussed using Twitter to research and monitor news. Previous research suggests that the main use of Twitter by journalists is breaking and disseminating news or soliciting sources (Hermida, 2010), which is in contrast to how the sport journalists reported they used it, which was to see ‘what’s happening’. The importance of Twitter in researching and monitoring news was also evident when the sport journalists stated who they followed – a mix of other journalists, media organisations, sport organisations and athletes – people or organisations who provided the most useful information. The six journalists who did not follow athletes noted that it was because they weren’t newsworthy, underlining that the primary function of Twitter for these journalists was to monitor the news. This represents a new finding for the field, which is perhaps reflective and an advantage of the method, as this is one of the first studies to conduct qualitative interviews with journalists to ask how they use Twitter (along with Posetti, 2009) rather than simply analysing tweets.
Another significant finding in this study was that while previous research has contended that Twitter has become a tool to break and distribute news quickly, (Ahmad, 2010; Farhi, 2009; Hermida, 2010) these sport journalists were divided in whether or not to use it as a platform to break news. Some sport journalists said that they used it to break news and gain a competitive advantage over other media. But, in contrast, six sport journalists said they would never use Twitter to break news as it wasn’t one of the newspaper’s official platforms. Another significant result relates to using Twitter as a source. This research found that sport journalists would always aim to verify a tweet with a phone call or face-to-face interview, indicating that these sport journalists are reluctant to use Twitter as the only source. However, a number of journalists stated that they would use a tweet in a story as a ‘last resort’, if they couldn’t speak to a source directly. Overall, Twitter is being used by Australian newspaper sport journalists in their everyday work and monitoring the news is the most common use. But it is evident that Twitter is being used in different ways by different journalists, which conforms to the statement made by Java et al. (2009: 63) in their initial study that analysed how tweeters used Twitter: ‘A single user may have multiple intentions or may even serve different roles in different communities’. This perhaps indicates that Twitter is still a new platform for sport journalists and there are no concrete rules, or best practice strategies, about how it should be used.
The other Web 2.0 platform that journalists identified as using in their everyday work was fan forums. The use of these was in line with O’Sullivan and Heinonen’s (2008) study that contended that journalists view online platforms as a valuable research tool, except that these sports journalists only used fan forums for a specific reason, that of gauging the opinion and reaction of fans. The way that these sport journalists said they used fan forums reinforced the traditional journalistic practice of gatekeeping, or selecting, transforming and focusing information into what Shoemaker and Vos (2009: 1) stated is a ‘manageable subset of media messages’. Singer (1997) contended that journalists see an important role for themselves as sensemakers in the online age, using their expertise to tell the public what is news. This was evident in the way sport journalists prefaced their use of fan forums by noting that they would only use them as the start of an idea – or to research but not source – and how they described the fans who frequent fan forums. The majority of sport journalists stated that the fans were extremist, hardcore and from ‘left field’. A minority stated that there were good analysts of the game there and that ‘the days when the sport journalist was the only expert are long gone’, yet the overall trend suggests that sport journalists – like other journalists in the Web 2.0 age – have been resistant to accept other ‘unofficial’ sources as experts. Overall, this theme seems to suggest that although some journalists welcomed the chance to ask for public opinion, the majority of sport journalists contended that they were the experts who knew what and how stories should be told. Two journalists also expressed frustration that some athletes and clubs were bypassing them and publishing news directly to fans via their online platforms; Tom from the Inquirer argued that relying on the club’s own media was against his role as a sports journalist, stating ‘That’s a frustrating part, sometimes you might have requested an interview with a player who might be topical for some sort of reason and they won’t talk to the press, but they will talk to the club website.’ This is in line with Poor’s (2006) study that explained that journalists were angered when a baseball player went directly to online fan forums to talk with fans, therefore bypassing them as traditional gatekeepers. This suggests that while Web 2.0 offers the chance for others to have an input into the newsmaking process, these journalists still saw an important role for themselves as ‘gatekeepers’ and ‘sensemakers’.
The use of Facebook in journalism is yet to receive much academic attention, despite its role as one of the defining platforms of the Web 2.0 generation. As this study contends, only a minority of journalists are using this platform in their work. Instead, particularly when compared to Twitter, the sport journalists in this study explained that Facebook was a private medium. The journalists explained that they would have no hesitation in using something written on Twitter as a source, as it was public, but they would not use something written on a private Facebook page. However, the majority of sport journalists did say that if an athlete had an open or public page, then they would use this in a story. This has interesting ethical implications and is worthy of further investigation as Web 2.0 platforms become even more prominent in the work practices of journalists.
Overall, there are common themes throughout the use of the three most prominent Web 2.0 platforms that are in line with previous studies that show this new technology has not dramatically changed how journalists work. The journalists in this study all used technology in their everyday work routines, but on their terms. This indicates that they have adopted this technology to meet traditional journalistic norms and practices, which is in line with previous studies on the impact of Web 2.0 platforms (Lasorsa et al., 2011; Singer, 2005) that stated that new technology is simply ‘normalised’ into everyday work practices. Using Web 2.0 platforms has simply become part of the newsgathering, sourcing and reporting routine. This is further supported by the journalists’ response to whether they had read their respective company’s social media policies: only two of the 20 who had a Twitter account had. Ten of the 20 stated their own personal guidelines for posting were driven by ‘commonsense’, as Adam from the Examiner’s comment ‘the same rules as what apply to publishing’ suggested. This clearly shows that while aspects of Web 2.0 technology have the potential to change interaction, it has been normalised into regular practices. It is clear from this research that journalists still see themselves as gatekeepers – or the expert that decides what is news and if it is disseminated to the public (Shoemaker and Reese, 1996; Shoemaker and Vos, 2009). This is evident in the dismissive way that the majority of these sport journalists referred to both fans on fan forums and followers on Twitter. Journalists still strive to be ethical, as demonstrated in the way they differentiate between Facebook and Twitter as private and public mediums, and how they decline to use something from a private Facebook page in a story. Sport journalists still aim to verify sources even if the Web 2.0 platform they gain the information from is an ‘official’ one, stating that a face-to-face or phone interview is still the best form of contact. These findings are also significant, as they further support Boyle’s (2006) argument that sport journalists perhaps have more in common with news journalists than first thought. While some research has contended that sports journalists are less ethical than their news counterparts or have different work routines (Bourgeois, 1995; Hardin, 2005; Surface, 1972), these findings are in line with research that shows that sports journalists share similar professional values and work routines (Boyle, 2006; Garrison and Salwen, 1994; McCleneghan, 1990). Another interesting finding was that there wasn’t a significant age difference between journalists who used Twitter, Facebook and other mediums, whereas it has been suggested in previous research that younger journalists were adapting to these new platforms more readily than older journalists (Reinardy, 2010; Usher, 2010).
Overall, previous research into Web 2.0 platforms has largely focused on the analysis of content (Lasorsa et al., 2011; Sheffer and Schultz, 2010; Singer, 2005; Usher, 2010) including tweets, blogs or letters of resignation. By contrast, this study has examined the ways in which journalists are using Web 2.0 platforms by talking to working journalists. This research thus makes an important contribution to the examination of the burgeoning area of ‘new’ media and its impact on journalism. Given that its results reflect other international studies on new media and journalists, (Lasorsa et al., 2011; Singer, 2005) and new media and sports journalists (Schultz and Sheffer, 2007), it is an important contribution to the field of journalism as it confirms the theory that Web 2.0 has had a common impact across nations, but also across different areas of journalism. This is further emphasised by the fact that the subsection of journalists examined – newspaper sports journalists – are the largest cohort within Australian journalism (Henningham, 1995). As a result, this study allows tentative conclusions to be drawn about Australian newspaper journalism in general; however, more research is required to confirm these results more broadly. This study also makes a contribution to the study of sport journalism, as the first and one of the largest qualitative studies of Australian newspaper sport journalists, which is significant given that newspapers employ 48 per cent of Australia’s sports journalists (Nicholson et al., 2011). Therefore, while this study cannot be generalised to the entire population of sport journalists in Australia as it only sampled major newspapers in Australian capital cities, this study can be viewed as highly indicative of what is occurring within the top level of sport journalism in Australia.
Footnotes
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.