The John Curley Center for Sports Journalism at Penn State has released the results of a survey of sports bloggers concerning their perception of their role in journalism compared with professional journalists. The bloggers surveyed are all independent, meaning they are not affiliated with newspapers, TV stations, or mainstream online outlets such as ESPN.com or Yahoo!. The full report on the study (PDF) can be found here. Read and discuss.

Some interesting facts from the report that caught my eye:

• More than 58 percent said the media sports content they trust most is neutral or unbiased, while the exact same percentage disagreed with the suggestion that neutrality is a characteristic of the most trustworthy blogs. This seems to corroborate something I’ve believed for a while now: People have different expectations for what they get from blogs and “professional” or “mainstream” sources. Therefore, things that work well for blogs may not necessarily work well for professional news organizations.
• While 85 percent believed their blogs are a form of journalism and fill a void, 75 percent said they don’t see themselves as rivals to professional sports journalists. I wish the researchers would’ve gone on and asked for more details about the void that bloggers said they were filling, so we can see where they see professional journalists falling short. That just seems like a natural follow-up question. Personally, I also don’t see most sports blogs as consistent rivals to professional sports reporters, but I think they are definitely competing with professional sports columnists.
• Eight percent said they spend eight or more hours a day working on their blogs. I really hope those are the few whose blogs are their main source of income. Otherwise, you are talking about a life of work, blog, sleep. Yikes (of course, sometimes the life of a journalist seems to be work, sleep, work).