It’s always interesting to see how another city from a different part of the world covers their sports. Sports can tell us quite a bit about society and what is important to a society. If we examine two different sports sections from two different locations around the world, we can actually see that there are some major differences and some general similarities between the two sections. For purposes of this blog, I chose to look at the sport’s section in a newspaper in Melbourne, Australia called The Age, and a sport’s section in a domestic newspaper in Atlanta, Ga. called the Journal-Constitution.
Let’s begin with the actual layout of the two different websites and their sports section. Both websites have a section on the front page that has advertisements and ways to follow the specific newspaper on twitter and other social media outlets. Both sections dedicate themselves to covering sports that matter to their local consumers. In terms of looks, both sites look the same. There is a column on the left that has the headlines, feature articles and videos. Both sections are broken down into easy to navigate links that direct the reader to whichever sport they would like to read about. Even if the sports covered by the two sections are different, in general both sections aim to cover sports that are popular and interesting to the readers in their area.
Although both sections have some general similarities, if we look deeper we can see that there are some major differences in the sports that are covered and the way that they are covered. For instance, the domestic paper, the Journal-Constitution is very heavy on local stories and covering the local professional, collegiate and high school athletic teams. The reader has very small links at the bottom of the page to see other sports like tennis, golf and soccer. Whereas, the Melbourne paper has a more of an international look at sports and has major sections devoted to tennis, soccer, horse racing and cricket from in Australia and around the world. There is a feature story in The Age that is about a Saudi Arabian football (soccer) player. That seems like an article that would be highly unlikely to be published in the Atlanta newspaper. All of the major articles in the Atlanta paper focused on the local writers writing stories about the local teams.
Another difference I found is that a lot of the articles on the Atlanta site are not just articles reporting on the games and reporting on stories from the different games, but rather are editorials and opinions based on the different sporting events. The major news in the Journal-Constitution section was the University of Georgia’s recent loss to Boise State in football. There were at least two different editorials written about that game and the author’s opinion of it. I did not see any opinion based articles on The Age’s front page that were just an opinion from an editorial columnist. Of course, there were feature stories, but they were not opinion related.
What these similarities and differences can tell us is that both sections strive to appeal to their consumer base. In Melbourne, the consumers enjoy reading about sports that are not heavily localized. Of course, they do like reading about their local teams, but it does not constitute the bulk of the paper’s content. Both have advertisements and strive to get their readers to interact with them through social media. But, it also tells us about major differences between our two cultures. Obviously, readers in Atlanta are more concerned with their local sports teams than national and international sporting events or leagues. This can tell us that either there is no desire from domestic readers to know about events that may occur outside of what they’re accustomed to. They’re very insulated consumers.
More importantly, it also tells us about the newspaper industry and how they view their responsibility to cover sporting events. What this is telling us is that the Journal-Constitution is a very specialized paper, and I’m sure we will see the same thing in different sports sections from different papers in the United States. The focus is on the local team, because that is what the newspaper feels they are best suited to do. They focus their coverage on the local teams in order to appeal to their local consumers. The feeling is that there are other outlets for readers to get coverage on national sports teams, or international sporting events. They would probably lose readers if they broadened their coverage to more national teams and sports. People turn to their local paper because they feel their job is to give them information about their local teams. This tells us the major difference between the two different sports sections. The Age attempts to cover sporting events that are local while expanding coverage to national and international sports. While the Journal-Constitution focuses on local coverage to appeal to their consumers. These sport sections can be considered microcosms of the two societies in general. American readers have always been more concerned with local American issues while paying scant attention to international stories, while international readers are concerned with local issues, but also give attention to international events as well. It was very interesting to see how these two opposing sport sections can give us a view into our societies as well.
Here is a link to both sport sections:
Nice usage of the words "microcosm" and "scant". Very nice.
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