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Online versus Print: A Comparative Analysis of Web-First Sports Coverage in Australia and the United Kingdom

Sports departments are among the best suited sections of a news organisation for the publishing of web-first articles, due to the urgency of reporting regular matches and news events. The decision about which platform to use first has become a major issue for media outlets. This article reports the results of a comparative analysis of 2606 articles published on the sports websites and newspapers of three Australian (The Australian, The Age and the Courier-Mail) and three UK titles (the Guardian, the Daily Telegraph and The Sun). The study found that the UK publications published more than double the number of web-first stories than the Australian ones. In-depth interviews with staff from each of the sports departments confirmed the view that Australian news organisations would prefer to protect exclusive content by holding it back for the newspaper, while two of the three UK companies pursued web-first aims.