Because little scholarly or industry research has reviewed the position of sports journalists on the matter of professionalism, a study analyzed newspaper sports journalists' evaluations of their professional orientations and their perceptions of the orientations of their colleagues who write "hard" and "soft" news. The study employed a national mail survey of 624 members of the Associated Press Sports Editors in 1988; 249 usable responses were received for a reponse rate of 40 percent. The sports journalists were overwhelmingly white males. Respondents evaluated a scale of 20 professional and non-professional items. Results indicated that: (1) based on a scale of professional items the sports journalists rated themselves higher than their peers who write hard news and soft news; and (2) on a scale of "nonprofessional" items they generally rated themselves as no different from their colleagues in hard news and soft news. (Three tables of data and 24 notes are included.) (MS)