Twitter's Impact on Sports Journalism Practice: Where a New Medium Meets and Old Art
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Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University Communication Theses Department of Communication Spring 4-18-2011 Twitter's Impact on Sports Journalism Practice: Where a New Medium Meets and Old Art Kyle Sears Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/communication_theses Recommended Citation Sears, Kyle, "Twitter's Impact on Sports Journalism Practice: Where a New Medium Meets and Old Art." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2011. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/communication_theses/74 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Communication at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Communication Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. TWITTER’S IMPACT ON SPORTS JOURNALISM PRACTICE: WHERE A NEW MEDIUM MEETS AN OLD ART by KYLE SEARS Under the Direction of Greg Lisby ABSTRACT This project aims to determine if and how the relatively new journalistic tool of Twitter is impacting journalistic decision-making and news production as a legitimate tool amongst sports writers. Using the methods of qualitative textual analysis and in-depth interviewing, this project analyzes the words and tweets of nine journalists at prominent U.S. newspapers in an attempt to fill a void in research among the topics of journalistic decision-making, sports journalism, and Twitter and to answer questions that arise from the marriage of a certain type of journalism and a particular new media platform. INDEX WORDS: Journalism, Decision-making, Sports, Twitter, Textual analysis, In-depth interviewing TWITTER’S IMPACT ON SPORTS JOURNALISM PRACTICE: WHERE A NEW MEDIUM MEETS AN OLD ART by KYLE SEARS A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University 2011 Copyright by Kyle Sears 2011 TWITTER’S IMPACT ON SPORTS JOURNALISM PRACTICE: WHERE A NEW MEDIUM MEETS AN OLD ART by KYLE SEARS Committee Chair: Greg Lisby Committee: Marian Meyers Carrie Packwood Freeman Electronic Version Approved: Office of Graduate Studies College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University May 2011 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the chair of my thesis committee, Dr. Greg Lisby, along with fellow committee members, Dr. Marian Meyers and Dr. Carrie Packwood-Freeman, for their guidance throughout this challenging writing process. I would also like to thank the chair of the Department of Communication, Dr. David Cheshier, and graduate director among students with an emphasis in mass communication, Dr. Mary Stuckey, for their leadership and support. Additionally, I would like to thank the nine great journalists and kind people—Mary Schmitt Boyer, Paul Buker, Ken Davidoff, Helene Elliott, Stephen F. Holder, Lindsay Jones, Colin Stephenson, Adam Thompson and Mike Wise—who took the time to reply to an email from a total stranger and participate in an interview despite their busy schedules. Last, but certainly not least, I would like to thank my parents, Frank and Mary Sears, for their unending love and support throughout my 24 years, but especially during this latest milestone. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv LIST OF TABLES viii 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 The “changing face of sports journalism” 1 1.2 A history of change 3 1.3 The “Twitter generation” 9 1.4 Asking questions about journalistic decision-making 13 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 19 2.1 Journalism and decision-making 19 2.2 The decision-making practices of sports journalists 22 2.3 Decision-making and new “journalisms” 24 2.4 Twitter and journalism 26 3 METHODS 36 3.1 Qualitative textual analysis 36 3.2 In-depth interviewing 37 3.3 The participants 41 4 RESULTS 43 4.1 When they began using Twitter 43 4.2 Why they began using Twitter 45 4.3 Why they continue to use Twitter 46 4.4 How they use Twitter 47 4.5 Twitter as a source of information 51 vi 4.6 Twitter as a source of journalistic content 54 4.7 Other uses of Twitter 56 4.8 Benefits of the relationship between sports journalism and Twitter 58 4.9 Pitfalls of the relationship between sports journalism and Twitter 60 4.10 Twitter’s impact on journalistic decision-making 64 4.11 Twitter’s impact on the quality of sports journalism 66 4.12 The potential long-term impact of Twitter 68 4.13 Twitter and sports journalism as a unique marriage 69 4.14 A look at their Twitter feeds 70 5 DISCUSSION 80 5.1 Twitter’s three hallmarks 82 5.2 Twitter’s impacts on journalists 83 5.3 Twitter’s impacts on journalism 87 5.4 Looking toward the future of work on Twitter and journalism 90 5.5 Limitations and suggestions for future research 91 5.6 Conclusions 92 REFERENCES 94 APPENDICES 103 A Top 25 newspapers by circulations in the U.S. in 2010 103 B Preliminary 23-question interviewing script 105 C Mary Schmitt Boyer interview transcript from March 7, 2011 107 D Paul Buker interview transcript from February 27, 2011 114 E Ken Davidoff interview transcript from March 7, 2011 122 vii F Helene Elliott interview transcript from March 2, 2011 129 G Stephen Holder interview transcript from March 2, 2011 136 H Lindsay Jones interview transcript from March 2, 2011 153 I Colin Stephenson interview transcript from March 2, 2011 166 J Adam Thompson interview transcript from February 28, 2011 180 K Mike Wise interview transcript from February 28, 2011 186 viii LIST OF TABLES 4.14.1 Twitter data 71 1 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 The “changing face of sports journalism” The phenomenon known as Twitter has taken hold of American culture in a relatively short amount of time. Twitter is a microblogging service created in 2006 through which users send 140-character messages, or “tweets,” responding to the queue “What’s happening?” One of the professions that has certainly been impacted by tweeting, retweeting, hashtagging, and the several other functions associated with the platform is journalism. Recent research presented at the International World Wide Web Conference in May of 2010 suggested that Twitter’s uses have begun to fit the definitions of more traditional media, such as websites, newspapers, television, and radio, rather that social networking sites, such as MySpace and Facebook (Gonsalves, 2010, para. 2). Sports journalism, in particular, seems to be a realm where Twitter has assumed much influence as a journalistic tool, perhaps for such reasons as a highly routinized news cycle and dedicated fan following. At a recent Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication panel on “Social Media and the Future of Sports Journalism,” Denver Post writer Lindsey Jones said, “Twitter has completely changed our beats. I can’t remember what the job was like before it. The whole mentality has changed. Who cares when you get it on the website? Twitter is what matters” (Schultz, para. 5). As evidenced by Jones’ 11,000 followers and demanding schedule of tweeting from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., Twitter has become an integral component of sports journalism practice. Twitter’s popularity among sports journalists begs the question, “If—and how—is this new medium impacting this old art?” Among those who have attempted an answer is Eric Goodman, a contributor to the sports-oriented social media website Courtside Post , who 2 authored a blog post on January 5, 2010, entitled, “Tweet, Tweet! Sports Journalism Has Changed.” In this post, Goodman (2010) suggests that “in today’s tech savvy world . the way we receive our sports ‘news’ has changed drastically” (para. 1). He goes on to detail the war of words that had taken place recently between Cincinnati Bengal wide receiver Chad Ochocinco and New York Jet cornerback Darrell Revis through their respective Twitter accounts, @OGOchoCinco and @revis24. The author compares this exchange to the more traditional way of obtaining quotes from players via press conferences: “A heated Twitter exchange between two opposing players is a lot more entertaining than reading dry copy about how Player A said such and such after practice and then having to wait until the next day to read the opposing city’s paper to see if Player B responds” (para. 6). Goodman’s sentiments about how the social media platform Twitter is causing journalists to reevaluate their sources are on the mark. However, there is another side to this “changing face of sports journalism,” as well—one that Goodman fails to address (para. 3). Twitter certainly has emerged as a valuable source for sports journalists due to the number of athletes who maintain active accounts. But the platform has also emerged as an equally valuable outlet for these journalists to provide their own content, whether they are reporting on the banter of two NFL prima donnas or information of more relevance to the sporting world. This is the second half of how Twitter is changing the face of sports journalism, and Goodman has not been the only person to overlook it. Media companies across the board previously made the same mistake—focusing on Twitter as a source and overlooking it as a means of providing content—during the first few months of 2009. As their executives came to realize this misjudgment, they began to craft and release social media policies in the latter months of the year, dictating what their employees could and could not do on sites like Twitter. 3 1.2 A history of change To substantiate Goodman’s claim that Twitter was a catalyst for “the changing face of sports journalism” and that such a change was taking place not only in terms of sourcing, as he asserted, but also in terms of content creation, a brief history is helpful.