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« Previous EntriesIt’s what the fans want. Or is it?
By Will 3 days ago, in the late afternoon, 4 Comments »
Thoughtful piece from The Guardian’s Andy Bull on the mundane, line-toeing crap which make up the majority of sportsmen’s quotes.
Quotations command space, but rarely interest. If it wasn’t enough to know that a player was injured, we now also have to know that the manager and a selection of former players think he is a “huge loss to the side”, and we will be told all of this in print, on the radio and 24 hours a day by Sky Sports News. These quotes come in three forms: the interesting, the mundane and the untrue. The volume of lineage and airtime spent relaying other peoples’ words means that the majority fall into the last two categories.
Is it what people want? On the whole, I think it is. In an ideal world, the quotation-supplying cricketer would have Ian Botham’s candour, Steve Waugh’s miserable honesty, Stephen Fleming’s wisdom and Matthew Hoggard’s wit and general affable madness. In reality, sportsmen are best left on the pitch to do what they know best. The rise of “media training” for sportsmen has created several monstrous, inhuman creatures. Normal and likeable on the pitch, in front of a microphone they are reduced to a list of five or six safe phrases which answer (or nearly answer) a multitude of questions. Monty Panesar and his “right areas”. Duncan Fletcher’s obsession with players “putting their hands up” and “coming to the party”. I suppose the frequency of press conferences has understandably dulled their enthusiasm, but is it too much to expect an honest answer? Talking of cliches, Lawrence Booth wrote a superb piece on just this.
I know David Gower’s not a fan of the post-match quote (he famously cut short a press conference in 1989 saying he was late for the theatre. What a legend), but the players are the product and the public want to hear from them. Even if it’s mundane bullshit.
Or do you?
4 Comments »Cricinfo banned from IPL
By Will 1 month ago, 5 Comments »
I’ve been in Southampton covering Hampshire’s first game of the season against the champions, Sussex, so have a few things to get off my chest or note down here. Yes, The Rose Bowl - comfortably England’s most characterless cricket ground is a world away from the razamatazz of the Indian Premier League. It won’t have escaped your notice that we, Cricinfo, are effectively banned from the IPL. That is, the organisers won’t give us accreditation so none of our staff are permitted entry (I believe), and nor are we allowed to use any of the photos that come from the agencies (some of whom are boycotting the event).
This is baloney, and a ridiculous own goal by Lalit Modi that smacks of arrogance and a clueless understanding of what the public want and how they consume their cricket news. Cricinfo has upwards of 10 million users, a large portion of whom - for an event of this scale - would be logged in to follow our IPL scorecards. Cut Cricinfo out, and the IPL shoot themselves in the foot.
It won’t actually affect how we operate - we are still doing ball-by-ball commentary, whose traffic must have been extraordinary for tonight’s crazy opening one-dayer - as Cricinfo’s editor, Sambit Bal, explains:
Sambit Bal, the editor of Cricinfo, described the restrictions as discriminatory and unjust. “We are a legitimate cricket media organisation with unmatched global credibility and we are asking no special favours,” he said. “We cover cricket with journalistic rigour and integrity. We are being denied our basic rights to cover a cricket event in a professional manner.”
However, Bal said Cricinfo’s editorial commitment to the tournament would not be affected. “Boycotting the IPL is not an option for us. Our commitment to cover cricket is absolute, as is our obligation to the reader. We are not blind to the significance of the IPL, which could be a seminal event in cricket. We will try to cover every game with the same rigour and depth expected of us.”
5 Comments »
Photo essay on the Iraq war
By Will 2 months ago, 1 Comment »
It’s five years since the Americans invaded Iraq. Not even the most pessimistic of commentators would have predicted they would have so much troops still in the country, half a decade later.
Reuters have produced a commemorative video - or rather a photo essay, which is even better for this particular subject. Anyone interested in journalism, photography (or, let’s face it, war in general) should not hesitate in clicking here immediately.
[via Sambrook]
Yes this blog is largely about cricket, but I occasionally post other things - particularly on journalism and photography
1 Comment »Football nil, cricket…one?
By Will last year, at the end of November, No Comments; be the first!
Oh, any excuse to belittle football - my least favourite sport. I’d rather watch curling, or darts - or both at the same time (now there’s an idea; darts on ice skates).
Anyway, England have lost, Steve McLaren has stolen his £2.5m (”wally with the lolly”) and everyone’s wondering what the hell’s going on. But spare a thought for the journalists and managing editors whose 2008 summer now looks a little bleak. Peter Preston:
But - for newspapers especially - there is a countervailing point. Football writers are dead keen. Sports editors are dead keen. Marketing departments are keen, because young, affluent lads are also prime reader targets. (Watch literally thousands of entries slamming the departed big drip flood on to the Guardian’s blog comment site). Yet does the experience of football championships past quite justify all the hype and expense? That’s a much more difficult call.
So with our national football side knocked off the radar next summer, let’s hope that English cricket can gain the high ground. We’ll have three Tests against New Zealand followed by four against South Africa, so there’s no better time to showcase England’s true summer sport.
We need a bowling attack first, though…
No Comments »‘Sub-editors will have to change’
By Will last year, at the start of November, No Comments; be the first!
A challenging piece from Lloyd Shepherd:
That said, subs will have to change, and I see that change being an evolution into a profoundly different role: that of curators of the news space created by the news brand. If Arianna Huffington was right when she described news media as having attention deficit disorder while the blogosphere was obsessive-compulsive, then we need some more obsessives around the place to keep the place tidy. By which I mean keeping content organised around topics, farming tags, checking search terms, seeding communities, enriching text with pictures, sound and video. As well as keeping those childish reporters in line with their spelling and grammar. More obsessives required, please. There’s a ready supply on the subs desk.
This is the why online journalism is such an exciting place: it’s constantly changing. Right now, anyone working in online media needs to be as multi-dimensional as possible, particularly subs. From my experience, the online world needs concise and accurate writers more than ever before. Speed and accuracy are everything, a fact that might suggest the sub’s role is increasingly redundant…but as Lloyd says, there are plenty of other things to satisfy their OCD…
No Comments »A united Middle East, of sorts
By Will last year, mid-October, No Comments; be the first!
Nice observation from Richard Sambrook on three friends united by journalism and varying degrees of trauma.
No Comments »I was talking to Alan Johnston earlier this week (yes he is as decent and remarkable as he appears). He told me something which keeps playing in my mind. A little while before 9/11 he was one of three BBC correspondents having dinner one night in Cairo. They all had a deep interest in the Middle East and were discussing how events were likely to play out. The other two were Frank Gardner, later shot and badly injured in Saudi Arabia and Caroline Hawley who reported from Baghdad for a number of years until she took a break in Amman on the night a suicide bomber blew up her hotel (she was uninjured). Alan of course was kidnapped in Gaza earlier this year. His story is being told by Panorama next week. Three very talented and commited reporters, friends, who together have experienced the sharpest end of the Middle East.
Got a minute or ten?
By Will last year, mid-July, 1 Comment »
I had the good fortune of (finally) meeting Patrick Kidd for lunch today and, among other things, he told us about his interview with Rahul Dravid yesterday (certainly worth reading). He managed 800 words - a fine feat considering he was afforded just two minutes with the India captain. Two. He and another journalist were given five “precious” minutes with him which never ceases to annoy me. With such a short time frame, you often end up firing questions at them, nodding furiously but not listening sufficiently, and it becomes a barrage for the interviewee. Of course, neither party - least of all those being interviewed - have hours and hours spare. But all we’re asking for is 10 minutes. That’s a fair amount of time in which to conduct a decent interview and get to know the human behind the sound-bites.
In Ireland, I was lucky to speak to a number of the players and the restrictions were far less. Rare and priceless. I wonder if and when that’ll ever happen? Anyway - go and read Patrick’s piece and of course his blog, Line and Length, immediately.
1 Comment »Phrases and cliches to be banned (along with smoking)
By Will last year, mid-June, 11 Comments »
It’s D-day for me and millions of other happy smokers on July 1. Yet while we wheeze our way to a healthier lifestyle at the behest of our loving, caring, huggable government, there is one burning issue in the ashtray of politics which has yet to be doused: clichés. They are absolutely everywhere, and the disease is spreading thick and fast.
Lawrence Booth wrote a piece on it for 2006’s Wisden Cricketers Almanack (absolutely required reading), but still nothing has been done. And I’ve just read one of the worst - one of my most hated expressions - from Paul Nixon, regarding tomorrow’s Twenty20 kick-off: express yourself. “Just go out there and express yourself”. It provokes in me a boiling rage, and makes me want to eat my feet.
Talking of such things, Mr Booth scribbled this in his column a couple of weeks ago which caught my eye:
Moments before Monty entered the Lancashire library to share his
thoughts on his four-wicket haul in West Indies’s first innings with
the press, a member of the fourth estate decided to get to work on
the pad of A4 placed on the table in front of Monty’s seat
(presumably in case he felt the need at any stage to jot down a few
thoughts). “REMEMBER TO SAY,” wrote the journalist “HIT THE RIGHT
AREAS, WORK HARD, KEEP IT SIMPLE”.Enter Monty to stifled titters. He sits down, spots the advice and
chuckles out loud (the Spin has the chuckle on tape and will happily
place an audio version of it on-line if challenged). He points it out
to England’s media-relations officer, James Avery, who chuckles too,
and then scans the beaming faces before him in search of the culprit.
Superb. Lawrence’s The Spin is emailed to just about everyone who knows or cares about cricket, and journalism, every Thursday. Get it now.
And your favourite clichés? Come on; put your hands up and come to the party. Express yourselves…
11 Comments »The modern cricket journalist
By Will 2 years ago, at the end of November, 4 Comments »
It’s no longer all about words, clusters, headlines, subbing and nailing the point of your piece in the second paragraph. The modern journalist needs to cook, too, especially when covering the Ashes.
Chez Cricinfo will be serving fish pie this evening. What five-star winners we are.
4 Comments »Cricket, is it?
By Will 2 years ago, at the end of September, 4 Comments »
A young Pakistani, whose parents hail from Lahore, noticed me reading Andrew Strauss’s book on the bus this afternoon. “Cricket, is it” (it wasn’t a question, more a statement; “is it” is relaxed, Londonish ghetto-talk for “eh”. Like an Australian would say “Ahhh cricket eh?” I am your professor, heed my knowledge).
“Yes, cricket,” I answered. “You like cricket?” was my pathetic, tired attempt at continuing the conversation.
“Ah is it! Cricket innit, you know” he offered, which was either an abrupt end to our brief chat or the makings of an entire diatribe - I wasn’t sure. Instead, I chose to big myself up and told him I was a journalist.
“Cricket journalist? What paper is it?” (correct usage of “is it” there) and he knew Cricinfo, his favourite site and so on. Immediately I regretted telling him - every other word he uttered was either Inzy, ICC or Hair. I couldn’t tell him much - the hearing was mid-way through and is due to run on tomorrow too. He was still at school, yet knew all about the hearing, its location, Inzamam and so on. Hilariously he assumed I’d be best friends with Mr Inzy, not to mention drinking pals with Daz and Billy D. “Can’t you call ‘em innit? Call Inzy, is it!”
The passion a sport can ignite in people astounds me sometimes.
4 Comments »Rahul Bhattacharya awarded Cricket Writer of the Year
By Will 2 years ago, mid-August, 2 Comments »
My colleague in India, Rahul Bhattacharya, has been voted Cricket Writer of the Year. Nice one, Rahul.
2 Comments »Photo journalism revisited
By Will 2 years ago, at the start of August, 1 Comment »
Following my post yesterday on photo journalism, Shane Richmond, News Editor of the Telegraph, has responded - and makes a very valid point:
Writing on his own blog, Will from The Corridor wrote: “Words can be mistaken, misinterpreted, altered, subbed and disagreed with - part of its joy and appeal - but photography, especially wartime photo journalism, has no such luxury. A dead kid is a dead kid; an elephant is, well, just that.”
Unfortunately, Will is wrong. Photos can be deceiving in all kinds of ways. They too can be mistaken, misinterpreted and disagreed with. But Will is right about their power, which is why they provoke such passion.
Many people don’t think we should publish photographs showing dead bodies or seriously injured people because they think it is in bad taste. They feel that it’s inappropriate or exploitative to show such images.
That was the case with the ‘falling man’ image taken on September 11th, 2001. It was used in many publications following the attack on New York but, such was the outcry from the public, it is seldom republished.
Of course photos can be mistaken and misinterpreted and, as Scott rightly points out, tweaked in Photoshop too. I hadn’t given any thought to what I wrote (a common problem with blogging in general. Or is that just me?) and, in retrospect, my remarks were rather flippant and ignorant. Perhaps my point is thus: whereas a paragraph, or even an entire story, might helpfully convey the background to a situation, an accompanying photo adds so much more to the story. The two are intrinsically linked and compliment eachother.
Shane has entered into a lively debate with a political blogger who argues, or rather questions, that these photos (and perhaps photo journalism of wartime conflicts “in general”) are contrived or staged. Call me naive but I simply cannot agree with this. Political propaganda is as old as the hills but, as Shane points out, there are simply too many photographers all competing for the same shot. What chance of staging such a shot and getting away with it? Despite the rise in citizen journalism, no Tom Dick or Harry can rock up with their favourite Canon EOS, masquerade as a journalist, avoid being killed by falling bombs, conspire with their chosen favourite warlord, stage a photo and get away with it.
Anyway, rather gone off topic here, but I remain fascinated by the decisions behind what is published in newspapers. Blogs like the Telegraph’s - to a lesser degree the BBC’s, too, although I find their style surprisingly cocksure and sickly - really are demystifying the often shadowy world of newspapers and their editorial decisions. As someone who is now in that industry, albeit dedicated to one sport, I find it all pretty fascinating to say the least.
1 Comment »Choosing a photo
By Will 2 years ago, at the start of August, 2 Comments »
You ought to know by now my fascination of photography is nearly boundless. Working for Cricinfo - and listening and watching the fine folk of The Wisden Cricketer magazine a few desks away - has opened my eyes to the decisions made in the decision of which photo should be published.
Given that we’re running a news site our task is pretty easy: fresh, fresh, fresh. Keep it relevant to (one of) our main headlines and/or relevant to the day’s main stories. Similarly with the magazine, a photo should correspond (and add to - and entice people into reading) a certain story. We are, though, talking about cricket which, despite our best efforts, remains a mere game. Although, approaching the first anniversary of that Test match, I’m reminded of its significance to our lives!
Over in the middle-east, they’re having a crap time of it. So it was fascinating to read the Telegraph’s blogs (which are superb I might add) and the decisions involved in choosing which photos to go to print. While we deal in photos of cricketers, their main headache is death. In the end, they chose these two:
Instead of these:
Apologies for the harrowing imagery but it’s nevertheless fascinating to someone relatively new to the industry; I certainly view newspapers, columns and so forth in a different light these days, and wonder sometimes “who decided that this be published? How many people subbed this article?”. The media get a bad wrap in this country. Often it is deserved. But quite honestly I think they made the right choice here between informing the public of what is going on out there (I still don’t understand it properly) and shielding them from unnecessarily graphic photography. The Telegraph geezer says:
There is no written policy on photo publication at the Telegraph. No two photographs are alike and no two stories are alike so it is almost impossible to write guidance that covers every eventuality.
Where possible we try to avoid explicitly showing dead bodies but the decision lies with the picture editor on the day. The choice of picture depends on the story, what other images are available and - in some cases - consultation with the editor of the paper.
If the story merits it, or if the picture is the best image for the job, then we will sometimes publish a picture which may shock some readers.
The Qana story was particularly powerful because so many of the victims were children. The most striking images of the day showed dead children and it was impossible to tell the story adequately without showing bodies.
The flip side is that arguably they’re wrapping us in cotton wool by not showing us the most violent imagery. As a wordsmith and writer I’ve a greater interest in the pieces produced than the actual photos but, nevertheless, photography continues to aid and influence journalism in every corner of the industry.
Words can be mistaken, misinterpreted, altered, subbed and disagreed with - part of its joy and appeal - but photography, especially wartime photo journalism, has no such luxury. A dead kid is a dead kid; an elephant is, well, just that. It’s quite a restrictive form of reportage in that sense but equally it has a great power and I reckon we’re fucking lucky to live in the digital age, with every man and his dog owning cameras and sharing images all over the place from every nook and cranny.
This post brought to you by The Rambling Idiot Inc.
2 Comments »Web versus print
By Will 2 years ago, at the end of July, 2 Comments »
It’s a fascinating time we live in. The emergence of the internet in the 1990s has, a decade later, started to transform news and the way journalists report on it. By and large, certainly in sports journalism, newspapers are starting to lose the battle against the internet’s immediacy and flexibility - but it need not be such a stark, chilling omen for the future of print media, as the following describes:
2 Comments »American sports editor Greg Bowers writes on Editor & Publisher of a revelation he had not too long ago concerning how sporting news is transforming because of the Web. One day when he was deciding what the next days layout would be, his wife, not really a sports fan, mentioned the days two top stories. and then it hit Greg; why should I print these stories in tomorrow’s paper if everyone already knows what happened?
“Sports journalism, actually journalism in general, is in a state of paralysis. Two things that have been constant companions in journalism through the years, have split apart.
“The first thing is reporting, getting out the news. The second is telling good stories, interpreting the news. They once went hand in hand — news and writing. Now the first one is out and about before the second one can get its coat off.
“Getting information to consumers has become a race. And it’s a race that newspapers, by definition, are losing.”
So instead of repeating the same news in the next day’s print edition, Bowers realized that newsrooms needed to tell the story behind the news. Journalists must find the information that the public wants to know and give “depth. Perception. Interpretation.”
Said bower, “The truth is, newspapers are in a particularly good position to play this new game. They just haven’t realized it yet.”
Reporting on sport
By Will 2 years ago, at the start of July, 1 Comment »
Because I’m now fortunate enough to be writing about a sport and running one the internet’s most popular sites, I have an increased interest in journalism, online journalism, news reportage and so on. The BBC’s blogs have given a glimpse into how their sports editors report on it all, and run the website. I remain a big supporter of the Beeb’s site which, for general sports coverage, is unrivalled. Cricinfo is infinitely bigger and offers something entirely different. Anyway I’m not here to make comparisons as to the goods and bads of each service.
I was reading Howard Nurse’s post and was astounded to read they had no less than 10 people dedicated (solely, it appears) to England’s match against Portugal. Is that normal (does anyone know?). Yes it’s the World Cup, and a football tournament at that, but it nevertheless surprised me.
So that’s where our money goes…!
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