In the Press Box

Abstract

Professional sports are among the most highly mediated areas of modern life. Baseball is at the center of sports coverage in Japan throughout the year, and the Tigers are followed by a huge corps of newspaper reporters and photographers and television and radio broadcasters and commentators. The chapter details the work routines and career paths of these media professionals. The most important of the Hanshin sports media are the five daily sports papers, which combine the exuberance of tabloid storytelling with the expertise of fulltime teams of highly knowledgeable reporters, editors, photographers, and commentators. Unlike the Hanshin Tigers’ main rival, the Yomiuri Giants, whose parent company is one of the largest media companies in the world, the Hanshin company lacks its own media company that it can control. Hanshin finds itself in a deeply problematical codependency with the regional and national media, and this Faustian bargain is analyzed in the chapter.