Final answer:
Sports reporting in media can range from objective and unbiased to being manipulated for various reasons, including media bias and commercial interests. While traditional journalists have aimed for accuracy, the influence of social media and the focus on profit sometimes challenge this ideal.
Step-by-step explanation:
Reporting in sports can reflect various aspects of media coverage quality, and opinions vary on whether it is impartial or biased. While it has been the case that professional journalists and reporters, especially on established platforms, have strived to maintain credibility and accuracy, the current media landscape is more complex. The proliferation of media platforms, including social media, has led to a situation where the media can sometimes become a source of confusion, with misinformation and sensationalism often driven by the competition for audience and advertising revenue. This can manifest in various ways, from scorekeeper or horserace journalism that focuses more on polling numbers and less on policy positions, to partisan journalism, yellow journalism, and interpretive reporting, each with their own potential for bias.
Furthermore, media events, which are often carefully scripted by politicians, and the media's role as the "fourth estate" in overseeing political processes influence the approach and nature of media coverage in sports. With recent concerns about media bias from both liberal and conservative perspectives and an industry-wide focus on profitability over comprehensive coverage, it is clear that sports reporting in media could fall under any of the options presented: 1) objective and unbiased, 2) done by unqualified people, 3) blatantly manipulated, or 4) held in high esteem by journalists.