What future for football journalism?

Posted by Ian Reeves on 27 February 2006 at 14:50
Tags: Journalism

In his Observer sports column, journalist Paul Wilson recalls a diatribe made by Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson a few years ago to a collection of newspaper football reporters:

‘Your days are numbered anyway,’ he grumbled. ‘Television gets everything now. All you lot can hope for are the crumbs that remain when television has had its fill. That’s why you can’t tell a story straight any more.’

Ferguson was right, says Wilson. A similar point was made by Tom Humphries of the Irish Times when he said newspapers find themselves further and further from the action having to shout louder and louder to be heard. “That is why quotes are spun, paid for on a kiss-and-tell basis or obtained by deception via elaborate scams in Dubai. The process is undignified and counter-productive. The worse newspapers behave, the less reason footballers have to trust them and the safer television looks.”

But Wilson wonders whether the “golden goose” of television is turning into a turkey as games are played to half empty stadiums at times suited to television audiences - witness the timings of the FA Cup quarter finals, which will be played on four consecutive evenings later this month.

Television no longer ‘covers’ football in the way that newspapers were once able to, he notes. It presents it. It doesn’t dare upset its paymasters.

So television is cocking it up and newspapers are out in the cold. So where is the future for football journalism?

Tags: Journalism