Sport and Mass Media.
Sport section in the newspaper is where sports reporter mainly uses to flex its muscles. Most sports sections in major newspaper even gets their own opinion or editorial page, widening playground for the sports reporters. For example, sports section in Los Angeles Times, is divided in several sub-sections of different sports, and those sub-section is divided into smaller sections depending on the professional level, college level, and by teams. In those columns, reporters state their own opinion about the teams, and what each teams should do to improve their performance etc. Many general public tend to agree (or sway) with the opinions of such reporters thus cause teams to do something about it. Many teams actually listen to the opinions expressed by the reporters in the newspaper, and they tend to send away or bring in the players.
Not only sports reporters have influence over the teams, but they also have power to decide significant sporting events. Everyone who follows college football will agree that BCS rankings and AP rankings does not make much sense to anyone. Team A may have better record than Team B, but often, Team B ranks higher than Team A in those rankings, and the reason why such occurrence happens is because the ranking is decided by the votes of those sports reporters. Also, reporters have power to decide the winners of awards such as Heisman, or NBA season MVP. Sports reporters have more power over sporting event than many people may think.
President-elect Barack Obama has said that BCS ranking system makes no sense, and if he becomes the President, he will do something about the way college football rankings work, because such ranking decides which team will play in more prestigious Bowls. Although he was just joking, it shows how powerful sports reporters actually are. The function of mass media is to report the events to the masses, not manipulating the results of events, and sports reporters are doing exactly the opposite.
