Skewed sports coverage in top dailies

COVERING THE STATES- Part II: Two months of monitoring national newspapers shows that 76 per cent of the total sports coverage was on IPL stories. There’s almost a complete absence of reportage on Indian sports apart from cricket, states INDIRA AKOIJAM.

Posted/Updated Monday, Dec 10 13:59:57, 2012

COVERING THE STATES: Part II

Sample and methodology

The Hoot did a quantitative analysis of the coverage of Indian states among five English news dailies- The Times of India, The Indian Express, Hindustan Times, The Hindu and The Economic Times. Delhi editions of these papers were taken. The period covered was April and May, 2012. News coverage was tracked for 50 issues, in 28 states.

1. All pages were analysed except Delhi/ City, Editorial, Columns and Op- Ed pages

2. Noida, Gurgaon, Faridabad and Ghaziabad that are under the National Capital Region have been classified under states to which they belong

3. The Business and sports pages were included except in the case of Hindustan Times where the business section is a separate supplement.

4. In tracking issues like political, business and economy only stories that were specific to the state were considered, as opposite to national level news originating from that state.

5. For sports coverage, any sporting event located in a particular state was counted as a state story.

6. Sport categories like football, basketball, athletics, chess, motor racing have been classified as ‘other sports’. Cricket stories other than IPL have also been classified under ‘other sports’.

State coverage part II

Cricket continues to dominate the Indian newspapers when it comes to sports. The pages dedicated to sports are nothing less than three pages but most of them are on cricket. Front page coverage of cricket-related news is also not unusual. It thus takes the limelight and is the reason why other sports such as hockey, football and basketball are under covered.

Two months (April- May, 2012) of monitoring of the states coverage in five newspapers, including one business newspaper, shows that 19.57 per cent of the total coverage was sports and was the top most covered issue. The study was also revealing in terms of how much IPL dominated the coverage in all the national dailies. 76 per cent of the total sports coverage was on IPL stories.

‘Other sports’ that managed to gain some coverage like football, chess, cricket, hockey, and athletics, etc received only 4.6 per cent of the total coverage. Each of these sports other than cricket received not more than 5 per cent of the total sports coverage.

TABLE 1: TOTAL NUMBER OF SPORTS STORIES

TOTAL SPORT STORIES/ NEWSPAPERS	THE TIMES OF INDIA	HINDUSTAN TIMES	THE INDIAN EXPRESS	THE ECONOMIC TIMES	THE HINDU	TOTAL
TOTAL SPORT STORIES	291	246	167	2	306	1012
TOTAL OF ALL ISSUES	1007	1029	1340	181	1614	5171

The two-month study shows that The Hindu did the widest coverage and The Economic Times the least.

TABLE 2: PERCENTAGE OF SPORTS TO TOTAL COVERAGE

PERCENTAGE OF SPORTS COVERAGE (%)	THE TIMES OF INDIA	HINDUSTAN TIMES	THE INDIAN EXPRESS	THE ECONOMIC TIMES	THE HINDU	TOTAL
PERCENTAGE OF SPORTS COVERAGE (%)	28.89	23.9	12.4	1.1	18.9	19.57

With more than 3 pages dedicated to sports, dailies features detailed analysis of sports, profiles, interviews of sports personalities, expert analysis, etc. sports is the only issue which has dedicated daily pages in newspapers. Nearly 20 per cent of the total coverage comes from sports. The Times of India devoted the highest coverage of 28.89 per cent of its total coverage over these two months to sports.

TABLE 3: PERCENTAGE OF OTHER SPORTS TO TOTAL COVERAGE

PERCENTAGE OF OTHER SPORTS COVERAGE (%)	THE TIMES OF INDIA	HINDUSTAN TIMES	THE INDIAN EXPRESS	THE ECONOMIC TIMES	THE HINDU	TOTAL
PERCENTAGE OF OTHER SPORTS COVERAGE (%)	8.2	3.9	3.8		4.02	4.6

Even the national football tournament, Santosh Trophy had very little coverage. Cricket is preferred to football, hockey and chess. ‘Other sports’ were clearly under-represented in all the national newspapers during the IPL matches with only 4.6 per cent of the total coverage. But The Times of India had twice as much of other sports coverage as compared to the four newspapers. But most of these were merely small briefs. This holds true for all the five newspapers. The Hindu however, is the only newspaper that had at least half a page in its sports section dedicated to other sports. Though its stories were fewer in number than those in the TOI, they were a mix of bigger stories and briefs.

TABLE 4: IPL AS PERCENTAGE OF ALL SPORTS

PERCENTAGE OF IPL COVERAGE (%)	THE TIMES OF INDIA	HINDUSTAN TIMES	THE INDIAN EXPRESS	THE ECONOMIC TIMES	THE HINDU	TOTAL
PERCENTAGE OF IPL COVERAGE (%)	71.47	83.3	69.46	100	78.7	76.28

An unprecedented amount of sports coverage was dedicated to IPL alone, with detailed accounts of all the action, on and off the field during Indian Premier League season. News coverage for the fifth season of the cricket tournament in April and May was 76.28 per cent of the total sports coverage. In each of the newspapers, the coverage was more than 60 per cent of the total sports coverage during the two months. The Economic Times had only 2 sports stories, both on IPL. The Hindustan Times had the most: 83.3 per cent of its total sports coverage was dedicated to IPL.

TABLE 5: PERCENTAGE OF COVERAGE OF TOP 5 SPORTS TO TOTAL SPORTS

PERCENTAGE	THE TIMES OF INDIA	HINDUSTAN TIMES	THE INDIAN EXPRESS	THE ECONOMIC TIMES	THE HINDU	TOTAL
IPL	71.47	83.3	69.46	100	78.7	76.28
Football	5.5	2.43	9.58		5.8	5.5
Chess	5.8	4.87	1.79		1.3	3.5
Cricket	1.3	0.8	7.78		5.2	3.4
Hockey	3.78	1.6	2.3		0.98	2.17
Athletics	2	1.2	3.6		0.3	1.58

The two months study period also saw both the Santosh Trophy (6 May- 3 June) for football and Azlan Shah (May 24- 31) for hockey tournaments take place. Both the events merited less than 6 per cent of the total sports coverage. Football or other sports have mainly disappeared from their topics of coverage with cricket news dominating their coverage. However the top five sports stories apart from IPL are football, chess, cricket, hockey and athletics.

Over the two months, only 5.5 per cent of the total coverage was on football with each of stories being small briefs. Chess received 3.5 per cent of the total coverage with maximum stories being reported from Tamil Nadu. Also the chess coverage was mainly on Vishwanath Anand. Other cricket stories too figured in the newspaper but with only 3.4 per cent. Despite Azlan Shah Cup being played during the whole of May, there was barely any coverage. Overall, hockey reported a dismal percentage of 2.17 per cent while athletics got the least coverage with 1.58 percent of the total sports.

TABLE 6: PERCENTAGE OF SPORTS COVERAGE IN TOP 5 STATES

STATES/ NEWSPAPERS	THE TIMES OF INDIA	HINDUSTAN TIMES	THE INDIAN EXPRESS	THE ECONOMIC TIMES	THE HINDU	TOTAL
Maharashtra	28.5	40.6	38.9		20.58	30.7
Tamil Nadu	19.58	14.6	8.3		22.54	17.4
West Bengal	10.9	15.8	13.7	50	15	13.9
Karnataka	19.9	11.78	5.9	50	13	13.6
Rajasthan	9.2	7.3	9.58		6.5	8

The top five states are Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Karnataka and Rajasthan. They received maximum coverage owing to the IPL matches that were being played there. Hindustan Times gave the highest coverage to Maharashtra with 40.6 per cent of the total sports coverage. Overall, Maharashtra received 30.7 per cent of the total sports coverage.

TABLE 7: PERCENTAGE OF TOP 6 SPORTS TO TOTAL SPORTS OF STATES

STATES	PERCENTAGE
STATES	IPL	FOOTBALL	CHESS	CRICKET	HOCKEY	ATHLETICS
Maharashtra	84.5	0.3	4.5	7	3.5	0.3
Tamil Nadu	76.7	-	11.3	3.9	-	-
West Bengal	75	19.14	-	2.1	-	0.7
Karnataka	76.8	1.45		1.45	7.9	4.3
Rajasthan	98.76	-	-	-	-	-

The coverage of the top 6 sports in the above states shows that more than 75% of sports news was on IPL. A staggering 98.76 per cent of total sports on IPL were reported from Rajasthan with no other coverage on the top 6 sports. Maharashtra on the other hand had 84.5 per cent on IPL, 7 per cent on cricket, chess with 4.5 per cent, hockey 3.5 per cent and football and athletics with 0.3 per cent each. Tamil Nadu too had maximum coverage on IPL with 76.7 per cent followed by 11.3 per cent with the prime focus on Vishwanathan Anand and 3.9 per cent on cricket. West Bengal on the other hand had a substantial coverage of football with 19.14 per cent. IPL as obvious was the maximum covered sport with 75 per cent coverage. Hockey though under- represented, it received 7.9 per cent, the maximum from Karnataka. Similarly for Athletics, the highest coverage came from Karnataka, with 4.3 per cent of the total coverage.

Thus, the overall sports coverage in national newspapers is skewed. It could be due to the IPL matches played during the two months; however it goes to show the tendency of these newspapers to choose a news item based on the popularity and the glamour associated with it. Readers with other sport interests are not left with any other choice. And there’s a complete absence of sport reportage in Indian sports apart from cricket. With special features and guest columns by experts and cricketers, newspapers too have been following the same trend as the television news channels.