I news

[Padge]

Am I the only person who has read this and though this guy is taking the you know what.  He is saying that he will do his job as long as somebody else does it all for him.

 

He is telling the reality of how modern media works, modern media isn't about content any more its about delivering advertising. 

[Mark S]

Journalists are lazy, they want stories to find them. The days of investigative journalism are dead and buried as no one wants to rock the boat anymore, and end up writing classified ads at the local paper.

PR companies thrive of the laziness of journalist.

[Bedford Roughyed]

Not sure it's laziness, it's more a change in the way they are expected to operate. Cut budgets, clickbait, etc. Instead of a team of journalists with a photo budget, you now have single person who's job is to edit press releases and fill space with whatever they have.

That's from locals to nationals, with only some sports exempt, i.e football.

[DiH68]

This is such a complex issue. I've worked in newspapers for 20-plus years, and there is no easy answer.

All of these things that the person in the original article suggests will not guarantee you better coverage.

However, by not doing them you are immediately putting yourself at a disadvantage.

And make no mistake, deadlines are important. Newspapers can sometimes push back deadlines for what they consider a major game or event, but if they don't put RL in that category, then they won't.

If you have an earlier kickoff then you're in consideration to be included. If the match finishes too late to make deadline, you're not even in the race.

Press releases are a tough one.

When it comes to local papers, it will work. Every local team should send in match reports, news and pix to their local paper on a regular basis and they'll get coverage, especially as journalists are being axed left right and centre but they still need content to fill the papers.

However, bigger newspapers don't generally run press releases. It's a bit of a no-no. But what they do like is good story angles that they can then write themselves.

The RL media bods should find a reporter at each paper who is sympathetic to RL and then stay in regular contact, supplying whatever news and info they can, at least a couple of times a week.

You have to think outside the box though, it's got to be something interesting, not the usual boring team news etc.

Also, never send a generic press release to all rival papers. They won't run stuff that everyone else has got. They want exclusive angles.

I've no idea if the RFL already does all or some of this. I'm sure they do.

But for people sitting here thinking it's easy, it really isn't. Newspaper production these days is all about advertising and they will run the stories and subjects that advertisers want, or that the newspaper thinks they want.

There is also an awful lot of research done these days about the readership and their preferences and its quite possible that newspapers don't ignore RL because they don't like it. It could be far more analytical than people realise,

[John Drake]

Journalists are lazy, they want stories to find them. The days of investigative journalism are dead and buried as no one wants to rock the boat anymore, and end up writing classified ads at the local paper.

PR companies thrive of the laziness of journalist.

 

That's a 'lazy' comment.

 

In an age where readers demand content for free, and it becomes harder to earn a decent living from journalism, the quality of what is left to read will inevitably fall.

[John Drake]

RL journalists doing anything positive for the sport, fat chance.

 

Gee, thanks.

 

Just finished working with LPL colleagues on the latest issue of Rugby League World. It's in shops Friday. Full of good quality features on all aspects of the game, including a brand new 'Rising Star' award we've initiated for a young emerging player at amateur level, and coverage of the Champion Schools finals with one of the lads who played at Wembley this year explaining what it meant to him.

 

Good to know we've wasted our time, though.

 

Don't tar everyone with the same brush.

[Evil Homer]

Gee, thanks.

 

Just finished working with LPL colleagues on the latest issue of Rugby League World. It's in shops Friday. Full of good quality features on all aspects of the game, including a brand new 'Rising Star' award we've initiated for a young emerging player at amateur level, and coverage of the Champion Schools finals with one of the lads who played at Wembley this year explaining what it meant to him.

 

Good to know we've wasted our time, though.

 

Don't tar everyone with the same brush.

RLW is the same publication that regularly runs 'Bring back GB' articles and other such nonsense, made no comment on the arrest of Sol Mokdad, Dave Hadfield's latest contribution was 'Top 5 failed expansion attempts', I think my comment was pretty fair to be honest.

[Lowdesert]

This is such a complex issue. I've worked in newspapers for 20-plus years, and there is no easy answer.

All of these things that the person in the original article suggests will not guarantee you better coverage.

However, by not doing them you are immediately putting yourself at a disadvantage.

And make no mistake, deadlines are important. Newspapers can sometimes push back deadlines for what they consider a major game or event, but if they don't put RL in that category, then they won't.

If you have an earlier kickoff then you're in consideration to be included. If the match finishes too late to make deadline, you're not even in the race.

Press releases are a tough one.

When it comes to local papers, it will work. Every local team should send in match reports, news and pix to their local paper on a regular basis and they'll get coverage, especially as journalists are being axed left right and centre but they still need content to fill the papers.

However, bigger newspapers don't generally run press releases. It's a bit of a no-no. But what they do like is good story angles that they can then write themselves.

The RL media bods should find a reporter at each paper who is sympathetic to RL and then stay in regular contact, supplying whatever news and info they can, at least a couple of times a week.

You have to think outside the box though, it's got to be something interesting, not the usual boring team news etc.

Also, never send a generic press release to all rival papers. They won't run stuff that everyone else has got. They want exclusive angles.

I've no idea if the RFL already does all or some of this. I'm sure they do.

But for people sitting here thinking it's easy, it really isn't. Newspaper production these days is all about advertising and they will run the stories and subjects that advertisers want, or that the newspaper thinks they want.

There is also an awful lot of research done these days about the readership and their preferences and its quite possible that newspapers don't ignore RL because they don't like it. It could be far more analytical than people realise,

Good information and thanks. Like you say, not doing anything, in the first instance, is putting yourself at a disadvantage. Let's hope Mr. Wood responds to clarify it.

[gingerjon]

RLW is the same publication that regularly runs 'Bring back GB' articles and other such nonsense, made no comment on the arrest of Sol Mokdad, Dave Hadfield's latest contribution was 'Top 5 failed expansion attempts', I think my comment was pretty fair to be honest.

 

They're not there to be cheerleaders.

[Lobbygobbler]

Until recently virtually no RL fans would have ever worked in the media. They would have been in mills or pits.

Nowadays more and more kids from RL backgrounds are making their way up the social ladder and getting into media jobs.

Perhaps the RFL should fund say 10 bursaries per year for students to do degrees in sports journalism?

[C H Calthrop]

Until recently virtually no RL fans would have ever worked in the media. They would have been in mills or pits.

Nowadays more and more kids from RL backgrounds are making their way up the social ladder and getting into media jobs.

Perhaps the RFL should fund say 10 bursaries per year for students to do degrees in sports journalism?

Oh way out , way way out! That wasn't true in the 60's let alone nowadays.

[Lobbygobbler]

Oh way out , way way out! That wasn't true in the 60's let alone nowadays.

What wasnt true?

[The Future is League]

Lets give the RFL time to respond and take it from there.

[C H Calthrop]

What wasnt true?

RL fans working in the media is recent 

[John Rhino]

Credit to the i today for the small report on the Widnes Saints match. But the open letter by Matt Butler was by far the most column inches for some time.

[Man of Kent]

RL is actually very well served by British media, if not national newspapers (with the honourable exception of the Guardian).

There's two, often three live matches a week on Sky, two weekly newspapers (one more than RU), two monthly magazines, a weekly highlights show on the BBC, live commentaries from local BBC radio and several regular podcasts (Rod Studd's RL Renegades and Radio Yorkshire's Last Tackle leap to mind). Not forgetting this website/forum, of course.

And even the Telegraph has match reports, albeit rather perfunctory. All in all, not bad!

[John Drake]

RLW is the same publication that regularly runs 'Bring back GB' articles and other such nonsense, made no comment on the arrest of Sol Mokdad, Dave Hadfield's latest contribution was 'Top 5 failed expansion attempts', I think my comment was pretty fair to be honest.

 

We contacted Sol Mokdad with a request to do an interview on what happened to him. After initially agreeing he subsequently declined. Other writers did comment on it in the mag.

 

Some people do want to Bring Back GB. So shoot 'em? Others don't, but they've already got what they want. Nowt wrong with a bit of debate.

 

Dave Hadfield listed *six* failed expansion attempts (we're not here to airbrush history, and there are more than six, to choose from, sadly, which breaks my heart) but in the following issue we ran a feature urging the Super League clubs to support expansion teams in League 1 by going on the road, with contributions from Coventry Bears, Gloucestershire All Golds and Newcastle Thunder, to try and prevent any more failed expansion attempts and we have a piece on Hemel in preparation for a future issue.

 

One thing's for sure, we can't please all the people all the time in every issue, but we love the sport and do our level best to promote it while making the mag a decent and varied read with the limited resources at our disposal, and we always encourage feedback, good or bad, and act on it wherever possible, if we think it's justified.

[C H Calthrop]

RL is actually very well served by British media, if not national newspapers (with the honourable exception of the Guardian).

There's two, often three live matches a week on Sky, two weekly newspapers (one more than RU), two monthly magazines, a weekly highlights show on the BBC, live commentaries from local BBC radio and several regular podcasts (Rod Studd's RL Renegades and Radio Yorkshire's Last Tackle leap to mind). Not forgetting this website/forum, of course.

And even the Telegraph has match reports, albeit rather perfunctory. All in all, not bad!

Well the honourable exception of the Guardian decided to allocate cricket coverage to their in house RL journalist rather than cover the RLWC and currently cover the NRL more than British RL. Yes we have Sky. Dedicated RL media is not the media it is a measure of the game among RL fans not the wider public. The SLS was originally devised to make up for the reduction in RL coverage from the BBC in the early 2000's. It is broadcast too late to be relevant and occupies some unusual time slots to work in the promotion and frankly even the informtion broadcast of RL. Podcasts etc are neither here nor there. Less said about the Telegraph the better.

All in all there is a lot of passing thought and deliberate ignorance. 

[Matt Butler]

Thanks for the responses to the article. To be clear, I don't want the RFL to "do my job for me", nor is my reason for wanting earlier kick-offs because I want to bunk off home earlier.

 

The point is, rugby league, like it or not, lies on the fringes, as does almost any sport except football.

 

And sports desks are increasingly sparsely populated operations, with people often doing the jobs that used to be done by three - I have laid out pages, sub-edited copy and chosen pictures on many a night in the office, often in the space of a single match.

 

Which gives us less time to cover, research, take notice of every sport. Football is everywhere - that is easy. And when the Olympics or Paralympics are on, that is in your face the whole time as well.

 

But sports like county cricket, boxing, rugby league, athletics and women's football to name a few tend to slip through the cracks unless someone is a genuine enthusiast.

 

And the days of specialist correspondents in these sports are long gone. 

 

So it is in rugby league's interests to employ a media person to give sports desks a hand. County cricket have done it and their coverage has increased accordingly. It doesn't have to be much. Today's email from the ECB, for instance, was sent at 1.45pm and said:

 

First day of last round of matches , with Division One title to be decided, as well as one relegation place. So far…

 

Yorkshire are the only one of the three title contenders to have taken a point, reducing leaders Middlesex to 108 for four at Lord’s to trim their lead to eight points. Nick Gubbins, who was selected for Lions training camp yesterday, still there on 59. Three wickets for Jack Brooks.

 

That would have taken the writer five minutes to write and gives over-worked, under-resourced desks an instant insight into what to look out for as the day progresses. 

 

Something which would be even quicker and easier to sort out would be the availability of pictures. Case in point: We have subscriptions with three major agencies. But we ran a story in Monday's paper, on Kevin Brown's sin-binning and the most recent picture I could get without paying for (that's another problem - our budgets are more often than not a figure in the region of zero) was from 2014. We were lucky he was still playing for the same club.

 

And to answer your questions about whether I have had a response from Nigel Wood or the RFL, not yet. But I will try and get one. Once I have got these pages laid out.

[Lowdesert]

Thanks for the responses to the article. To be clear, I don't want the RFL to "do my job for me", nor is my reason for wanting earlier kick-offs because I want to bunk off home earlier.

 

The point is, rugby league, like it or not, lies on the fringes, as does almost any sport except football.

 

And sports desks are increasingly sparsely populated operations, with people often doing the jobs that used to be done by three - I have laid out pages, sub-edited copy and chosen pictures on many a night in the office, often in the space of a single match.

 

Which gives us less time to cover, research, take notice of every sport. Football is everywhere - that is easy. And when the Olympics or Paralympics are on, that is in your face the whole time as well.

 

But sports like county cricket, boxing, rugby league, athletics and women's football to name a few tend to slip through the cracks unless someone is a genuine enthusiast.

 

And the days of specialist correspondents in these sports are long gone. 

 

So it is in rugby league's interests to employ a media person to give sports desks a hand. County cricket have done it and their coverage has increased accordingly. It doesn't have to be much. Today's email from the ECB, for instance, was sent at 1.45pm and said:

 

First day of last round of matches , with Division One title to be decided, as well as one relegation place. So far…

 

Yorkshire are the only one of the three title contenders to have taken a point, reducing leaders Middlesex to 108 for four at Lord’s to trim their lead to eight points. Nick Gubbins, who was selected for Lions training camp yesterday, still there on 59. Three wickets for Jack Brooks.

 

That would have taken the writer five minutes to write and gives over-worked, under-resourced desks an instant insight into what to look out for as the day progresses. 

 

Something which would be even quicker and easier to sort out would be the availability of pictures. Case in point: We have subscriptions with three major agencies. But we ran a story in Monday's paper, on Kevin Brown's sin-binning and the most recent picture I could get without paying for (that's another problem - our budgets are more often than not a figure in the region of zero) was from 2014. We were lucky he was still playing for the same club.

 

And to answer your questions about whether I have had a response from Nigel Wood or the RFL, not yet. But I will try and get one. Once I have got these pages laid out.

Hope you have some success Matt. Good luck and keep at him!

[Mark S]

If it came to it could we as fans agree to send a weekly update, it looks like the cricket updates are created using a schema or template.

[Lobbygobbler]

Thanks for the responses to the article. To be clear, I don't want the RFL to "do my job for me", nor is my reason for wanting earlier kick-offs because I want to bunk off home earlier.

The point is, rugby league, like it or not, lies on the fringes, as does almost any sport except football.

And sports desks are increasingly sparsely populated operations, with people often doing the jobs that used to be done by three - I have laid out pages, sub-edited copy and chosen pictures on many a night in the office, often in the space of a single match.

Which gives us less time to cover, research, take notice of every sport. Football is everywhere - that is easy. And when the Olympics or Paralympics are on, that is in your face the whole time as well.

But sports like county cricket, boxing, rugby league, athletics and women's football to name a few tend to slip through the cracks unless someone is a genuine enthusiast.

And the days of specialist correspondents in these sports are long gone.

So it is in rugby league's interests to employ a media person to give sports desks a hand. County cricket have done it and their coverage has increased accordingly. It doesn't have to be much. Today's email from the ECB, for instance, was sent at 1.45pm and said:

First day of last round of matches , with Division One title to be decided, as well as one relegation place. So far…

Yorkshire are the only one of the three title contenders to have taken a point, reducing leaders Middlesex to 108 for four at Lord’s to trim their lead to eight points. Nick Gubbins, who was selected for Lions training camp yesterday, still there on 59. Three wickets for Jack Brooks.

That would have taken the writer five minutes to write and gives over-worked, under-resourced desks an instant insight into what to look out for as the day progresses.

Something which would be even quicker and easier to sort out would be the availability of pictures. Case in point: We have subscriptions with three major agencies. But we ran a story in Monday's paper, on Kevin Brown's sin-binning and the most recent picture I could get without paying for (that's another problem - our budgets are more often than not a figure in the region of zero) was from 2014. We were lucky he was still playing for the same club.

And to answer your questions about whether I have had a response from Nigel Wood or the RFL, not yet. But I will try and get one. Once I have got these pages laid out.

Cricket as a whole gets far more coverage e.g. on radio 4 than it deserves. They were waffling on about the county cricket this morning on radio 4 for ages. Nowt againstcricket but personally I've never met a super passionate cricket fan (like in rugby l or u or soccer), and I've never met a woman who likes cricket. I'm mystified why it gets so much coverage

[DoubleD]

Thanks for the responses to the article. To be clear, I don't want the RFL to "do my job for me", nor is my reason for wanting earlier kick-offs because I want to bunk off home earlier.

The point is, rugby league, like it or not, lies on the fringes, as does almost any sport except football.

And sports desks are increasingly sparsely populated operations, with people often doing the jobs that used to be done by three - I have laid out pages, sub-edited copy and chosen pictures on many a night in the office, often in the space of a single match.

Which gives us less time to cover, research, take notice of every sport. Football is everywhere - that is easy. And when the Olympics or Paralympics are on, that is in your face the whole time as well.

But sports like county cricket, boxing, rugby league, athletics and women's football to name a few tend to slip through the cracks unless someone is a genuine enthusiast.

And the days of specialist correspondents in these sports are long gone.

So it is in rugby league's interests to employ a media person to give sports desks a hand. County cricket have done it and their coverage has increased accordingly. It doesn't have to be much. Today's email from the ECB, for instance, was sent at 1.45pm and said:

First day of last round of matches , with Division One title to be decided, as well as one relegation place. So far…

Yorkshire are the only one of the three title contenders to have taken a point, reducing leaders Middlesex to 108 for four at Lord’s to trim their lead to eight points. Nick Gubbins, who was selected for Lions training camp yesterday, still there on 59. Three wickets for Jack Brooks.

That would have taken the writer five minutes to write and gives over-worked, under-resourced desks an instant insight into what to look out for as the day progresses.

Something which would be even quicker and easier to sort out would be the availability of pictures. Case in point: We have subscriptions with three major agencies. But we ran a story in Monday's paper, on Kevin Brown's sin-binning and the most recent picture I could get without paying for (that's another problem - our budgets are more often than not a figure in the region of zero) was from 2014. We were lucky he was still playing for the same club.

And to answer your questions about whether I have had a response from Nigel Wood or the RFL, not yet. But I will try and get one. Once I have got these pages laid out.

I believe that Nigel is partial to the odd doughnut, so if you buy him a Krispy Kreme, there's a fair chance you'd get a response

[THE RED ROOSTER]

It's late at night and i have to work tomorrow but here is a link to an article which explains about Cricket's demise in the national print media and wjhat the ECB nad others are doing about it

http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/1024073.html

 

Also Brian McDermott once explained to me that Friday night games were popular with clubs in the north even if not on SKY because it was seen as part of the Northern pubbing and clubbing Friday night out before and after the game, so in a sense, despite individuals like myself trying to point out clubs could attract spectators from a wider geographical area by playing on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon there are cultural reasons why certain Rugby League clubs will always want to play on a Friday night regardess of the deadlines of the print media.

[Dave T]

I think there is something in Dunbar's point about newspapers wanting the sports to fund and do the job of the journalists as is touched on in the above cricket article.

Many games kick off during the day still and up until a couple of years back Saturday dinner time was still a regular kick off time but we didnt get this coverage that we are now being told we can get if we kick off earlier. We did also used to kick off at 7.30pm but that was a while back, although i still dont recall great coverage.

Maybe, just maybe the sport has decided to write off mainstream print media - after all, how many RL articlea do we need to put up with that talk about RU in them - something no other sport has to put up with?

We have never been aerved well and we can as usual blame the sport, but i am extremely cynical to claims that a couple of tweaks would see improvements.

I regularly read official match previews and reviews that appear on the official SL website and used in parts then on club and other sites like SportingLife so there is an element of thos happening already.

What cant the I newspaper get from this official SL source?

In fact why was this written as an open letter rather than being discussed over the phone with the rfl's media dept? I suspect there is no desire to increase coveragr, it was a chance to shift the blame for lack of resource and get the complaining fans on the side of the media and critical of the governing body - something very easy to do in RL.

Im certainly not saying the RFL shouldnt be doing better, but if the rewards are the kind of nonsense we have had to endure for decades when we did have RL journos then i dont think its worth it. Writing your own story utilising official sources and social media may be the righy approach rather than funding a struggling media.