Journalists have become an integral component of the sport system. At the
same time, the role of the sport journalist has become an increasingly complex,
particularly since sport entered a period of hyper-commercialisation, in
which the interests of business, sport and the media have become fused in a
web of mutual promotional benefit. It is now often unclear just what the sport
journalist's primary responsibility is. On one hand they may be employed to
objectively report the facts to the public, while on the other they may be asked
to selectively promote those sports in which the media organisations and
their sponsors have a financial and emotional stake.