THE MYTH MAKERS AND WRECKERS - SYNDICATED AND NON-SYNDICATED SPORTS COLUMNISTS AT 103 METRO NEWSPAPERS

This 1994 national newspaper investigation on sports columnists is the first-ever of its kind. It identifies 43 syndicated and 88 non-syndic ated sports columnists writing opinion at 103 metropolitan newspapers with circulations in excess of 100,000. It compares each group's ranki ng of news sources for writing daily columns through discriminant anal ysis. A principal factor analysis classifies the news sources into thr ee dimensions the investigator named 'Administrative,' 'Opinionated,' and 'Influential.' The 131 sports columnists in this study also provid e their perspective about the business today as it relates to the chan ging nature of 'sport' in our contemporary society.