EDUCATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MODERN BODY OF SPECIALISTS IN MASS COMMUNICATIONS IN SPORTS

The article discusses the educational characteristics of the modern body of Russian sports journalists. During the study, 76 representatives of sports media were interviewed on a wide range of issues related to the specifics of their education, professional development and educational needs within the profession. According to the results of the analysis, we can note, first of all, a high formal level of education among representatives of sports journalism, as well as a fairly high percentage of people with specialized education in journalism. Notably, the proportion of journalism graduates in the profession has been continuously growing in recent years. At the same time, a lot of respondents doubt the need for both specialized education and higher education in general, which indicates certain problems of universities with adapting to the market requirements. Constant changes in the market force members of this profession to regularly engage in self-education, compensating for the shortcomings of their basic knowledge.