Abstract
Anecdotal evidence suggests that sport organisations in Australia have taken significant control of the news agenda through the employment of media-relations managers, who deliver regular, routinised information subsidies – such as media releases and media conferences. This article explored the impact of these subsidies on the news through a survey (n = 123) and interviews (n = 37) with media-relations staff employed in Australian sport organisations. It found that the scheduling of media conferences and the selection of sources to appear at these conferences is highly strategic and routinised within professional sport organisations, with little apparent input from sport journalists. This has the potential to lead to further criticisms of sport journalism, which has long been labelled the ‘toy department’ of the newsroom.
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