ABSTRACT
The purposes of this chapter are, first, to assess the extent to which sports journalism increasingly has become an essential underpinning economically of traditional hard news journalism within the UK, while (where relevant) drawing some international parallels. Not only is it still a valuable inducement to readers to buy print news, but it has migrated from its once-traditional home at the rear of newspapers – for example, into their business, celebrity and lifestyle and political sections. An assessment of the implications for hard news journalism of this phenomenon will be made at the end of the chapter – to what extent is it a means of drawing people in to reading hard news, where it shares a page with sports-related news, for example?
