The way sports journalists view sports bloggers is not unanimous, Simon McEnnis writes. McEnnis is a lecturer at the University of Brighton, and a former sports journalist. He interviewed seven UK sports journalists over their perceptions of and attitudes toward sports bloggers.

The interview results can be described as falling into two broad categories, seeing blogging either through a “competitive” or “complementary” lens. The competitive discourse focused around drawing a distinction between the professionals and “fan bloggers”. The journalists often cited the bloggers’ lack of accumulated knowledge and access to sources, when trying to establish the bloggers’ inferiority.

Sometimes journalists do recognize the value of blogging, McEnnis found. Highly specialized and knowledgeable fan bloggers are respected. Such blogs are seen as welcome complements to mainstream sports journalism, as they serve niche audiences. The blogs may even be invaluable resources for more generalist sports journalists.

The article “Playing on the same pitch” was published by the journal Digital Journalism. It is available online (abstract public).

Picture: Two Photographers by Del-Uks, licence CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.