In Sweden sports journalism has been critisised among many for lacking professionalism and sports journalists have been accused of being both restricted and biased. Especially in local sports journalism the issue is said to be evenmore prominent.Through a qualitative discourse analysis the main purpose of this essay is to study the standard of objectivity in swedish local sports journalism.Thirty two randomly selected articles written in ten local newspapers after ten games in swedish footballs top divison Allsvenskan were read and analyzed during the study. In relation to the profesional ideals of journalism some major themes of shortcomings were discovered and categorized. The most significant was the lack of hearing both sides. The reporting was very one-sided in a way that most of the time favored the local team. From an objective view questionable reporting was also found when it came to the inclusion and exclusion of certain in-game situations but also in what surrounding circumstances the journalists chose to aim their focus on. Uncertaincies were likewise exposed in the amount of personal opinions being shown by the author.

This study aims to gain greater knowledge about the use of framing in local sports journalism. We did this by doing a qualitative content analysis of the local Swedish newspaper Barometern/OT and it’s coverage of the largest local football team, Kalmar FF. We randomly selected six of the team’s games during 2014 and analysed all the texts that had to do with the games, except for shorter texts and texts that are supposed to be based on personal opinions, such as chronicles. The results show that Barometern/OT have a tendency of defending individual players and giving them positive criticism, while they much more often give negative criticism to the team as a whole. Also, we found signs that Barometern/OT contributed to creating a local imagined community by having a incomplete use of names at a few times, amongst other factors. Because of these observations we noticed that the editorial staff both contributed to creating a local imagined community and that they were a part of it themselves.