Performance‐enhancing drug use in amateur and professional sports: Separating the realities from the ramblings

This article is based on a programme of research addressing mass-mediated portrayals of drugs in sports, in addition to relevant academic literature and recent articles from the popular press. Among the central issues discussed are the impact of newspaper and magazine journalism on the formation of public policy, the reporting of erroneous information, the capacity of highprofile individuals to affect and build the news agenda, and some of the assumptions journalists make about athletes where drugs are concerned. Through both qualitative and quantitative approaches, the author has observed an agenda-building function on the part of specialized media and famous athletes to affect the manner in which: (a) policy-makers consider legislation on performance-enhancing drugs; and (b) mainstream journalists tend to follow suit regardless of whether rigorous examinations or causeand-effect relationships have been identified. This article has at its core, then, the concept of press hysteria namely, how that hysteria leads news consumers and policy-makers to become 'true believers' without evaluating hard evidence.