Sports Journalism - Not Your Tradional Style Journalism

For my interview with a journalist I had an email conversation with Patrick Kinahan of 1320 KFAN.  Kinahan is currently has a show with David James on the station in the mornings and writes an online blog for the station's website (see an example of one of his blog posts here). Kinahan has a background as both in broadcast and as a print journalist.

Since 1320 KFAN is a sports station I thought I'd direct my questions more towards sports journalism and the difference between sports journalism and traditional news journalism and I got some very interesting responses.

Like most of us wanting to get into sports journalism, Kinahan said he chose the life of a media member because he wanted, "to be in the sports field, but wasn't good enough to be a player." He broke into the field by "flooding the market with resumes" and eventually he got offers for a television job that paid $3.25/hour and a newspaper job that paid $4.50/hour. He took the newspaper job.

Kinhan defined "good" journalism as telling a story, "in a reliable, accurate manner" and that "credibility is the most important virtue" of "good" journalism.  He said that having worked in television, newspapers he believed that newspapers had the "highest standard" of "good" journalism. Kinahan also said that his current medium, raido "is more of an entertainment medium, and therefore doesn't always - nor is required to - adhere to the principles of good journalism" and that in radio a station serves the community when it reaches its objectives of trying "to provide entertainment and information."

When I asked Kinahan about the differences between sports journalism and traditional news journalism and he said that during his "25 years in the business, sports journalism has evolved into more opinion based." He went on to say that, "the reader/listener already knows the score, so opinion has become more important." He also said that "sports is more about fun." than it is about making a difference and that in his career he has made more of a difference when he wrote more news stories. The example he gave was a story he wrote about a high school athletic director/teacher who was losing his job because of budget cuts at the school. The individual was able to keep his job after the community rallied in support.

And finally he said that students trying to get into the field should "make contacts in the field as early as [they] can," "be willing to do whatever it takes to break into the field," and "Whatever job [they're] in, do [their] best" so they can move up in the business.

I was very grateful to have Patrick Kinahan's input on this subject and think everything he said about journalism and specifically sports journalism was spot on.  I'd also be interested in what everyone else thinks about this subject, so be sure to post your thoughts in the comments.