Ethics and sports journalism: a proposed checklist of items for evaluation of the quality of sports coverage in the media

Abstract

Taking into account their crucial role as disseminators of information and values in the democratic societies, the media should deal comprehensively and responsibly with all areas of the news arena. Despite this, scholars have detected a series of fundamental ethical drawbacks in sports journalism, such as the disappearance of the boundaries between information, opinion and advertising; sensationalism; the incitement to violence; the use of stereotypes, and the low quality and scant variety of sources. This paper identifies these shortcomings and proposes a set of analysis items for systematically evaluating the quality of sports coverage, based on the four fundamental principles of journalistic deontology: truth, justice, freedom and social responsibility. It concludes with a discussion of this proposal’s investigative, educational and professional applications.

KEYWORDS: ethics, journalism, sport, quality, analysis items, proposal.