Sports in African Print Media: Quality Journalism or Toy Department? A Comparison of the South African Results from the 2011 and 2021 International Sports Press Survey

Abstract

Sports journalism has, for some time, been a traditional subject of communication research. However, long-term studies and cross-national studies on sports journalism are still relatively rare. Analysis of sports in African print media is particularly underrepresented in scholarship. This contribution compares and contrasts the quality of sports journalism in the South African print media based on data collected during the 2011 and 2021 International Sports Press Survey (ISPS). Findings from the study largely replicate earlier studies with regards to authorship, placement, primary content, primary actors, journalistic formats, sourcing patterns, and gender representation in sports stories. While there are indications of gradual transformation, in a few aspects of sports journalism sport remains in the margins. Thematically, the media coverage is narrowly dominated by match reports, results, and previews. Moreover, coverage lacks critical journalistic engagement which makes sports pages amenable to ‘soft’ journalism and content that is generally considered to be ‘less serious’, thus lending credence to the thesis that sport is the ‘toy department’ of the news media.