Shifting the Coverage: Understanding Why Reporting and Attitudes Changed About the NFL and Player Safety

This research used semistructured interviews to give further context to prior research indicating that media coverage and organizational attitudes of professional football have focused more on the health and well-being of players than ever before, over the last decade. Interviews were conducted with eight current and former National Football League beat reporters who covered the sport during that time period. Through a coding process of those interview transcripts, reporters indicated that their coverage was most influenced by any personal connection to an injured player. However, it was revealed that the state of the journalism industry and barriers to information, such as access to medical professionals, sometimes limited how health, and specifically head injuries, were covered in the NFL. Consequently, such findings suggest a need to adjust reporting practices to be able to adequately cover health issues within professional football.