Challenges to the role of media in reporting sport corruption: insights from reporters in Balkan countries

Despite the influence and power that media hold and the importance placed on the role that they can assume regarding corruption, little is known about the part media can play in corruption in sport and any challenges they might face in reporting on it. This study aims to shed light in this unexplored area, by using insights from members of the media based in three Balkan countries, to help uncover the challenges and obstacles faced by sport media. The findings of this study allow for the multifold role of media in sport corruption to be examined, while uncovering the internally and externally driven obstacles they face, ranging from personal greed to market-based pressures and media’s ostracism from the wider anticorruption system.