When writing about sports, it is important to love and know at least a few sports. Gohar and Hasmik have chosen a narrow specialization since their student years. They have been working at Sport Mediamax for ten years. 

Attending and covering the Olympic Games in Rio and Tokyo was an especially indescribable experience for them. It was interesting to follow how the world’s best media works, it helped them to quickly get into the rhythm, to acquire new knowledge and skills. 

They sincerely believe that such big events teach a lot and are mandatory for the growth of sports journalists. 

Hasmik Babayan 

Sports journalism is like sports, constantly in rhythm, movement and speed. It is necessary to constantly follow the events happening in the world and within the country and be able to act very dynamically. Today’s sports journalism has become super-fast. 

You need to communicate information to readers before the event is over. Over time, of course, your mind becomes more flexible, you can follow the football field or the wrestling mat with one eye and work on the computer with the other. 

Since the level and beauty of sports journalism directly depend on the quality, development, good infrastructure, and beautiful halls of sports, all of that directly affects our work as well. 

There are very beautiful and rapidly developing sports in the world, which are in a very bad condition or are weak, and as a result, they are largely out of our sight, no matter how much we try to pay attention to them all. 

We still have several main base sports that secure medals in the international arena. It is a pity that the team uniforms are in a bad condition. 

All that cannot but affect the quality of sports journalism, it cannot be several degrees higher than the sport itself. They are too interconnected, although we understand that we can help make them interesting and recognizable. 

When we had just graduated from university and were taking our first steps, of course, we saw a lot of surprised looks. About ten years ago, there were few women in the field of sports journalism. 

However, over time, you manage to find your place, make them recognize you, read your publications, and form a field of mutual trust with the representatives of the sports world. 

We at Mediamax Sport have been delivering what perhaps not many have done for a long time. We have as little international news translated as possible, we try to create interesting and meaningful publications ourselves. They often write to us about how much they like the way we deliver or our management of pages on social networks. If you offer a good product, the reaction can’t be indifferent. 

In order to revitalize and develop sports, we definitely need more funds, sponsors, good sports structures, and interest generation among children. It is necessary to start with schools and then gradually develop student sports. I’m not saying that it doesn’t exist, but in terms of sports, there is never an upper limit, it is related to the expansion of new physical possibilities and the limits should be expanded every day. 

Gohar Nalbandian 

In fact, in terms of the structure or approach of the material, sports journalism is no different from journalism in any other field. 

The peculiarity is that a sports journalist is obliged to master the rules and approaches of sports, to know everything about a specific sport. Otherwise, it is not possible to provide quality and accurate coverage. 

Most federations in Armenia do not have direct contact with the media, do not have press officers, and do not send messages or organize meetings with journalists. Although, for the sake of fairness, I will note that recently there has been an increase in some sports (boxing, wrestling, gymnastics, basketball). I will mention the Football Federation separately because the latter is perhaps the only one that has had a separate press department for many years and has been active. 

At the beginning of my career, there were quite a lot of male journalists, but now the number of women has increased enormously. Initially, the presence of a woman during the championships or during training was strange not only for sports representatives but also for male journalists. 

The way of thinking that any journalist can write about sports is changing. That is not the case at all. To cover this field, believe me, you need a lot of skills and knowledge. 

Unfortunately, I am not satisfied with the situation. Sports websites have increased, but they mostly cover non-Armenian sports, barely one or two out of ten news are about Armenian athletes. I do not consider translations from foreign websites to be journalism. 

I can say the same about articles or analyses. From this perspective, local sports journalists have a huge job to do. 

I have always been of the opinion that public demand is created by journalists. If we give low-level materials in illiterate Armenian, we are satisfied with news only, then we will have readers of such quality. 

For Sport Mediamax, Armenian sports are a priority (not only victories and medals but also problems, gaps, and perspectives). Both the analysis and the well-presented article are important to us. 

I am very proud that we have that content and, consequently, a good readership. Maybe, they don’t reach thousands, but they are people who have a high level of education. 

If we write high-quality materials, at first 5 people will read it, then, I’m sure, that number will increase. But this should not be done by only 1-2 media outlets, but by all. A competition will appear here, and the general level of readers will increase. 

Gayane Asryan