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THE ROLE OF THE PRINT MEDIA IN SPORT DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA (A CASE STUDY OF THE COMPLETE SPORT NEWSPAPER)

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1    BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Sports was originally a recreational activity, but with the introduction of financial and material benefits and an attendant honour to it, the number of participants, the number of events and the struggle for victory have introduced high level politics into it. Consequent upon the expected rewards, fraud, irregularities and injustices have overshadowed the system. However, a lot of people and groups are now interested in knowing about sporting events. Fixtures, dates, time and place of such events become matters of interest. They equally raise a question about past ones and even the plans for the future. Thus, information and mass awareness become primary in solving this quest for information and knowledge. A special unit or field in the world of journalism takes it upon itself to report sporting events to the public.

The effects of these reports both in shaping the behaviour of the public and management of sports in general demand specialization and skills in sports reporting. This research in acknowledging these facts, examines the impact of print media in sport development in Nigeria. Sports were a recreational phenomenon till the early 1930’s when the first world sports fiesta was held. The processes of selection among different nations led to stronger and more competitive sports among nations and continents. Thus, competitive sports serve as an integrating force, and source of socio-political relationships. As an incentive and motivation to individuals and nations contending to the throne, financial benefits, international honours, merit awards were introduced. Sports bodies such as Federation International de Football Association (FIFA), Confederation of African Football (CAF) and National Food Authority (NFA) were established and employment opportunities created. Consequently, various sporting activities, medals, pressure groups and interests emerged. Every day, these groups and interests press or seek to know about the processes and dynamics of these sporting activities, ostensibly with a view to preserve and/or influence certain phenomena.

The mass media fill this responsibility gap as they report these activities and provide the necessary information needed to all interested parties far and wide. Beazell W.P. observed this when he wrote, “sports news comes nearer than anything else I know of, to the common denominator of news. There is probably more universal reader interest in the sports pages than in any of the other parts of the modem Newspaper.” This duty has great influence on the entire socio-cultural, political, and economic structure of nations. Sport commentaries originated nationalistic activities/pressures, fanaticism, and hooliganism in sports. Because of its wider reach, it has become the surest, though the costliest, means of advertising products, services and programmes. It has yielded millions for their organizers and made many analysts, and commentators international personalities/heroes.

The struggle for heteronomy among nations has equally been extended to sports. Considering the influence of sports reporting, necessary reporting materials and Concrete facts are needed for quality and objective reporting. They are interested in the means and methods of data gathering. Generally, they obtain the data through personal observation, press association, publications and mass media. With the introduction of financial and material benefits and an attendant honour to sport, the number of participants, the number of events and the struggle for victory has introduced high level politics into it. Consequent upon the expected rewards, fraud, irregularities and injustices have overshadowed the system. However, a lot of people and groups are now interested in knowing about sporting events. Fixtures, dates, time and place of such events become matters of interest. They equally raise a question about past ones and even the plans for the future. The sports reporters gather, process, interpret and publish relevant news items needed by interested parties. This responsibility puts them on the move all the time, hunting for facts that will be of immense value to the public. This paper, therefore, x-rays organization Structures of sports reporting, responsibility of sports reporters and technical for effective sports reporting.

 1.2    STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

This research is investigating on the role of print media in sport development in  Nigeria , it is a know fact that sport has become part and parcel of youth’s life especially male who spend lots of their valuable time in watching sport activities  on television. While, later in another day converge at the various newspapers stands scanning, reading and buying sport papers. Despite both fact that yesterday news is said to be a stale news in journalism sphere but refers is the case when it come into sport. Since the turnout of readers is impressive, the paper exanimate complete sport being able to promote sport development through this high readership. Interest in sport activities among the Nigeria youth as resulted to the emergency of various newspapers which focuses on sport activities such as: complete sport, soccer, e. t. c and various foreign sport class newspapers such as: Man U, Chelsea. e. t. c. However, is newspaper able to develop sport activities beg covering local, nation, and international sport activities?

1.3    OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

1. To know the contribution of print media to sport development

2. To examine the challenges facing print media in reporting sport activities

3. To know the qualities of the quality of  sport reporters in sport development

4. To analysis the functions of sport desk in every print outfit

5. To study the aspect of sport which print media give priority?

6. To know why sport activities are usually placed at the back cover of both the newspaper and magazine.

1.4    RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1. Does print media contribute to sport development in Nigeria?

2. What are the challenges facing sport reporters and sport desk in reporting sport activities?

3. Why do Nigeria Sport reporters pay more attention to foreign sport activities than local sport?

4. Do sport lovers enjoy newspaper sport stories than electronic media?

5. How do sport fans encourage sport reporters?

1.5    SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

There is no doubt about the fact that work like this will be beneficiary to some set of people and entity. Meanwhile, this work on the role of print media in sport development will benefit the following people, journalists, media owners, sport fans, government and future researchers.

Journalists: Sport writers and sport editors will at the end of this work realize the importance of their work in entertaining the people this will make them do more.

Media Owners: The research findings will enables media owners to earmark reasonable amount of money, equipment and other logistics to support their sport desk.

Government: government at all levels will see reasons for developing local sport so that local sport will be given more priority than the foreign ones. While government should make available some important gadget for sport reporting.

Future Researcher: Researchers who will be exploring on this or related Research will find the work interesting and as a reference point.

1.6    SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The scope of the study is limited to the role of the print media in sports development in Nigeria within the context of complete sport newspaper. Although, the basic objective of the project is to examine the impact of print media in sport development in Nigeria, this can not be effectively studied without considering the contribution complete sport newspaper has made to the development of sport in Nigeria.

1.7    LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

The study concentrates mostly on influence of media ownership on the professionalism especially programmes and contents credibility and objectivity of complete sport news paper. These factors will be linked up with the absolute power the owner of tunes media has on journalists and news editors, because he who pay the pipers dictate the tunes.

Time: Time constraint has posed a lot of limitations to this work as it took me a lot of time to gather enough literature materials while it was stressful to travel to different places.

Finance: Inadequate finance for this project is another hindrance: there was no enough money to browse extensively for the needed materials.

Materials: at present there was little literature materials available for this work as researchers were not really focus on this aspect.

However, despite the difficulties facing in course of this research, positive result were achieved.

1.8    DEFINITION OF THE TERMS

Role: This means the contribution, impact or simply put as the functions of print media in sport development.

Newspaper: This is a printed publication of loose folded sheets containing news, advertisements, sport, and correspondence e. t. c

Sport Activities: These are games or competitive activity played outdoors and involving physical exertion, e.g. cricket, football, racing e.t.c  for the purpose of entertainment.

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