In this first comprehensive study of the work routines and professional ideologies involved in the manufacture of sports news, Mark Douglas Lowes presents a detailed and richly textured ethnographic account of life on the sports desk at a major Canadian daily newspaper. His wide-ranging analysis considers the role of the audience commodity in sports news production, the dynamics of the newsroom, and the complex relations between reporters and their routine sources on the sports beat. The book concludes with an assessment of the ideological nature of sports news, and argues that sports coverage functions primarily as a promotional vehicle for the North American major league sports industry. It will be of interest to anyone concerned about how the media report sports news and the way they leave some of it unreported.
Sport is now, on all levels, indistinguishable from commercial entertainment.
Lowes traces one reason for this development the servile assistance rendered by writers for Canada s sports pages. There can be no doubt after reading Lowes book that this unholy symbiosis is part of a larger cultural progression toward greater and more integrated corporate systems. Not only do fans root for laundry players that will be gone tomorrow, replaced by others we see precious little in the sports pages that corporate entertainment does not want us to see. The most compelling sports book I ve read in some time. David Leach, Monday Magazine Inside the Sports Pages will prove to be of immense interest to sports fans, and students of popular culture, media, and journalism.