‘At this point, I have no idea’: Determining a sports journalist in the 2020s

This study utilizes interviews with 37 full-time, professional sports journalists to understand how they construct their identity. With social identity theory as a framework, the study found that access, organizational backing, and role conception represent characteristics essential to being a sports journalist (the in-group). While the journalists also identified what they considered business reporters, social media personalities, and non-objective analysts as characteristics that, in some cases, exclude persons from calling themselves sports journalists (the out-group). These results are then interpreted through the framework of social identity theory, boundary work and professional identity.