In discharging their usual responsibilities of description and commentary, reporters’ accounts...

[GoldfishLord]

There is something deeply paradoxical about the professional status of sports journalism, especially in the medium of print. In discharging their usual responsibilities of description and commentary, reporters’ accounts of sports events are eagerly consulted by sports fans, while in their broader journalistic role of covering sport in its many forms, sports journalists are among the most visible of all contemporary writers. The ruminations of the elite class of ‘celebrity’ sports journalists are much sought after by the major newspapers, their lucrative contracts being the envy of colleagues in other ‘disciplines’ of journalism. Yet sports journalists do not have a standing in their profession that corresponds to the size of their readerships or of their pay packets, with the old saying (now reaching the status of cliché) that sport is the ‘toy department of the news media’ still readily to hand as a dismissal of the worth of what sports journalists do. This reluctance to take sports journalism seriously produces the paradoxical outcome that sports newspaper writers are much read but little __________.

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What's the meaning of the bold part?

 

[Tarheel]

What do sports journalists do?

 

[GoldfishLord]

They covers sport in its many forms and discharges their usual responsibilities of description and commentary

 

[GoldfishLord]

Is "while" used with the meaning of "at the same time as"?

 

[Tarheel]

They report on sports and offer commentary on various things having to do with sports.

 

[Tarheel]

Is "while" used with the meaning of "at the same time as"?

Yes. Pretty much.

 

[Rover_KE]

I can’t see the source and author of your quoted text, GoldfishLord.

 

[GoldfishLord]

Source: EBOOK: Sport, Culture & Media By David Rowe

 

[Tarheel]

@GoldfishLord
Say: "They cover sports...."

(Apparently, that comes straight from the quoted text.)

When I asked the question in post #2, I was thinking that all you would have to do would be to answer that question and it would tell you all you need to know. Apparently, however, you are not a sports fan.

 

[5jj]

Is "while" used with the meaning of "at the same time as"?

I'd say it was closer to 'whereas'.

 

[GoldfishLord]

I'm not sure whether "while" means "at the same time as" or whether it means "whereas".
Tarheel said it meant "at the same time as".

 

[5jj]

And I said it was closer to 'whereas'. We are dealing with contrast rather than simultaneity here.

 

[Barque]

In discharging their usual responsibilities of description and commentary, reporters’ accounts of sports events are eagerly consulted by sports fans, while in their broader journalistic role of covering sport in its many forms, sports journalists are among the most visible of all contemporary writers.

1. When reporters do what they usually do (description and commentary), sports fans eagerly read or listen.
2. More generally speaking, since there are so many forms of sport, sports journalists are often well-known.

This reluctance to take sports journalism seriously produces the paradoxical outcome that sports newspaper writers are much read but little __________.

You seem to have left the last word out.

 

[Barque]

Is "while" used with the meaning of "at the same time as"?

I read it more as "and".

 

[jutfrank]

And I said it was closer to 'whereas'. We are dealing with contrast rather than simultaneity here.

I can't sense the contrast. Can you?

 

[5jj]

Yes, which is why I mentioned it.

In discharging their usual responsibilities of description and commentary, reporters’ accounts of sports events are eagerly consulted by sports fans, while (on the one hand) in their broader journalistic role of covering sport in its many forms, sports journalists are among the most visible of all contemporary writers.

 

[jutfrank]

So what are Tarheel, Barque, and myself missing here?

—reporters' accounts are eagerly consulted
—sports journalists are among the most visible of writers

Where's the contrast?

 

[emsr2d2]

For me, it's contrasting "reporters' accounts of sports events" with their "broader journalistic role of covering sport in its many forms".

 

[GoldfishLord]

There is something deeply paradoxical about the professional status of sports journalism, especially in the medium of print. In discharging their usual responsibilities of description and commentary, reporters’ accounts of sports events are eagerly consulted by sports fans, while in their broader journalistic role of covering sport in its many forms, sports journalists are among the most visible of all contemporary writers. The ruminations of the elite class of ‘celebrity’ sports journalists are much sought after by the major newspapers, their lucrative contracts being the envy of colleagues in other ‘disciplines’ of journalism. Yet sports journalists do not have a standing in their profession that corresponds to the size of their readerships or of their pay packets, with the old saying (now reaching the status of cliché) that sport is the ‘toy department of the news media’ still readily to hand as a dismissal of the worth of what sports journalists do. This reluctance to take sports journalism seriously produces the paradoxical outcome that sports newspaper writers are much read but little admired.

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How is the bold part parsed? It is hard to understand it.

 

[Barque]

There's an old saying. It's so old that it can be called a cliche.
That is Sport is the toy department of the news media.
This saying is still used in a mocking or dismissive way towards sports journalists.