Cadet reporter fired for ‘even-handed, positive’ NRL coverage
Roar Pro By Kris Swales, 13 Jun 2012 Kris Swales is a Roar Pro
- Tagged:
- Rugby League, sports journalism, State Of Origin
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A cadet journalist from an unnamed metropolitan daily newspaper has been fired after repeated breaches of the media corporation’s style guide relating to rugby league reporting.
Gloria Lewis, a 20-year-old Perth-born, Sydney-based Melbourne Storm fan, was ordered to remove her belongings from the dingy cubicle she shared with four other cub reporters.
She was escorted out of the building into near-cyclonic conditions on Monday night after turning in an opinion piece described by her supervisor as “even-handed, bordering on positive and completely inappropriate for our rapidly decreasing readership”.
The supervisor, who spoke to us on the condition he remained anonymous and stressed that he hadn’t watched a game of rugby league since being moved to the sports desk from the social pages in 1995, said he first noticed trouble-making signs from Lewis in May.
He was concerned with what she filed in her match report from the 2012 State Of Origin opener in Melbourne.
“I just couldn’t believe what I was reading,” the supervisor fumed.
“The 750-word piece praised the atmosphere at Etihad Stadium, the dominant play of the New South Wales forward pack and the attacking skills of Jennings and Hayne out wide.”
“She then the resilience of the Queenslanders and the fact that it was one of the most intense State Of Origin games of the past decade,” he continued.
“She also wrote about the chronological ebb-and-flow of the contest in great detail, giving readers a real feel for how the game unfolded.”
“Less than one-fifth of her report focused on the Jennings sin binning and Inglis’ try decision by the video ref!”
“Why weren’t those two incidents – which comprised almost one whole minute of the 80 minute contest – the only things talked about?”
“It was a rookie error, so we pulled the story and let her know she had two chances left before she was out.”
The Roar understands Lewis was given a second written warning when her report on the possible expansion of the NRL into Perth revealed it would be best achieved at the expense of an inner-Sydney club.
The final strike came when her opinion piece on the departure of NRL CEO David Gallop presented both pros and cons for the leadership styles and achievements of Gallop and ARL Commission chairman John Grant.
“She didn’t even mention what sort of car Grant drives,” our source scoffed.
“What sort of rugby league journalist would overlook something so important?”
Lewis, though disappointed by her employer’s decision, remains philosophical.
“I brought it on myself really,” she told The Roar through tears while busily poring over the statistics from Sunday’s NSW Cup clash between the Newtown Jets and Windsor Wolves at Parkes.
“My obvious love and passion for the game of rugby league were always going to count against me.”
“When you take into account that, given my age, I’m also completely unencumbered by the politics of the Super League war – not to mention a woman – I think it’s best for everyone involved if I’m kept away from the greatest game of all for the rest of my life.”
Lewis has been immediately snapped up by the AFL’s media department, where her love of phrases like “courageous 66-point loss”, “inspirational warriors of the new frontier” and “impressive attendance of 8,972 dedicated fans” has seen her appointed as official match reporter for the Gold Coast Suns and GWS Giants.
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- Explore:
- Rugby League, sports journalism, State Of Origin
June 13th 2012 @ 1:23am
Johnno said | June 13th 2012 @ 1:23am | Report comment
In the good old days a cadet reporter would get sacked if he put 1 sugar not 2 sugars into his old veteran hard as nails chain smoking hard drinking bosses coffee. Old Journalsits, are hard and crusty and veterans and love drinking and chain smoking as that was journalist sin the old school do and that was part of old school cadet training . So harden up cadets your journalists now, start acting like one.
June 13th 2012 @ 3:37am
Ghost Crayfish said | June 13th 2012 @ 3:37am | Report comment
This is the most confusing comment I have ever seen on a roar article.
June 13th 2012 @ 5:32am
steve b said | June 13th 2012 @ 5:32am | Report comment
I couldn’t agree more ,,missed the boat by a mile !!!!!
June 13th 2012 @ 10:54am
Australian Rules said | June 13th 2012 @ 10:54am | Report comment
My brain just exploded into a thosand pieces…
June 13th 2012 @ 9:29am
Matt F said | June 13th 2012 @ 9:29am | Report comment
wow…..
June 13th 2012 @ 4:31am
JVGO said | June 13th 2012 @ 4:31am | Report comment
Gloria, my only advice is now you are in AFL land just don’t write anything at all to do with GWS. And you thought Origin was a touchy subject. I tell you you would not believe, just don’t go there. It will only end in tears,,,, again.
June 13th 2012 @ 5:40am
Johnno said | June 13th 2012 @ 5:40am | Report comment
WHat i mean is men cadet journos need to harden up, journalism is a tough business just look at the 1980′s bosses of news networks and you will see some hard old school styles that don’t exist anymore.
-Old style cadets didn’t cut there teeth sipping cafe lates , they cut there teeth doing police rounds and court reporting, getting stuck in to hard meaty stories.
-And for those who know about journalism it is you play hard work hard, at least that used to be the culture of the old days the 70′s and 80′s.
-Ask any tough as teek leather skinned journos or head of a news department you gotta go hard and play hard and get stuck in, not being prissy and sipping on green tea or lattes, you get stuck in and it is a rough and tumble business and you have to roll your sleeves up and tough it out.
-Maybe new millennium (post 2000) cadets are softs and too pampered these days.
June 13th 2012 @ 7:13am
Football United said | June 13th 2012 @ 7:13am | Report comment
you still are just completely off the mark.
June 13th 2012 @ 9:14am
Scruffy said | June 13th 2012 @ 9:14am | Report comment
Whoosh!
June 13th 2012 @ 10:44am
oikee said | June 13th 2012 @ 10:44am | Report comment
Hey Johnno, nice post mate, i have to still give it up to the them, the journos,. If they were not doing their jobs we would not comment.
Imagine a world in which Ricky Stuart was King. ? No comment. ??
I wont judge you Johnno. Your ok mate.
June 13th 2012 @ 11:33am
Patrick Angel said | June 13th 2012 @ 11:33am | Report comment
Johnno, a man who has never set foot in a modern newroom.
June 13th 2012 @ 7:44pm
Johnno said | June 13th 2012 @ 7:44pm | Report comment
do you drink caffe latties and green tea Patrick Angel. I suspect you might.
June 25th 2012 @ 4:56am
Kat said | June 25th 2012 @ 4:56am | Report comment
Johnno, I find it hard to imagine that anyone who actually has inside knowledge of a newsroom would confuse “their” and “there”, or misspell “lattes” as “lates/latties”. After all, being a journo generally requires basic spelling ability.
Oh, and before you ask – yes, I drink green tea (along with most other varieties of tea) but hate coffee, be it lattes or anything else. Although I’m not sure what one’s preferred beverages have to do with anything…
June 13th 2012 @ 12:34pm
Mac said | June 13th 2012 @ 12:34pm | Report comment
You just made my day Johnno
June 13th 2012 @ 7:52am
Christo the Daddyo said | June 13th 2012 @ 7:52am | Report comment
Johnno, step away from the keyboard…
June 13th 2012 @ 8:05am
Dane25 said | June 13th 2012 @ 8:05am | Report comment
Poor Gloria.
I’ll assume she also believed Cameron and Ricky’s reasons for not attending their recent press conferences and subsequently didn’t lose her sh*t in article form. To an editor, that would’ve been the equivalent of tumbleweeds blowing through column space.
The death knell, no doubt.
June 13th 2012 @ 8:06am
MyGeneration said | June 13th 2012 @ 8:06am | Report comment
Strong reports that 8,972 tickets have been sold for the Parkes game on Sunday, Kris.
June 13th 2012 @ 9:03am
Edward Kelly said | June 13th 2012 @ 9:03am | Report comment
Gloria now that you are writing for the AFL remember to use “blockbuster” to describe almost all games except those involving GWS and GCS and column space will not be a problem as you have the whole second half of every melbourne paper to fill everyday.
June 13th 2012 @ 9:17am
Meesta Cool said | June 13th 2012 @ 9:17am | Report comment
Being a Rugby League journalist in Melbourne would be a easy task, — three 1/4 column articles per year about Some guys called Smith, Cronk and Slater, set at timely intervals, a weekly breakdown of the weeks results (made up of the scores for MOST games) and the ability to write a gossip column and cooking page.
Yup, anybody can do it, even Kris Swales!.
June 17th 2012 @ 10:14pm
Droppa said | June 17th 2012 @ 10:14pm | Report comment
Sound like your an expert…not!
June 13th 2012 @ 9:20am
Cameron said | June 13th 2012 @ 9:20am | Report comment
I’ve noticed a trend towards fictional articles such as this on the Roar lately, and it is gettting a little tiresome.
As for the article, it just serves to reinforce this insane persecutory complex that NRL fans have about the AFL. Roy Masters had it right when he mentioned on the offsiders on Sunday that RL is becoming more and more senstive towards the happenings of the AFL.
It seems as though every new initative the AFL makes is seen as another insultive attempt to take RL away from it’s supposedly rightful place as “the greatest game of all” and articles such as this are just a reflection of the inate frustration from NRL fans that this assertion has yet to be realised, and it apparently is all the AFL’s fault.
June 13th 2012 @ 9:51am
Kris Swales said | June 13th 2012 @ 9:51am | Report comment
Only an AFL fan could interpret this article as being about the AFL. But you’ve got me Cameron, so I’ll fess up – the whole piece was just an elaborate set-up for that final sentence.
June 13th 2012 @ 10:26am
Meesta Cool said | June 13th 2012 @ 10:26am | Report comment
Just keep writing this stuff Kris, I am sure tat I am not the only one who enjoys it.. The game as it stands needs to be laughed at!.
can someone please tell me what the Initials “AFL” stand for. hehehe
June 13th 2012 @ 10:32am
oikee said | June 13th 2012 @ 10:32am | Report comment
Kris, you my friend i would happily buy a beer any time your in Queensland. I have never smiled so much and your aticles are beyond reproach.
Keep up the good work. It is tongue in cheek stuff, no harm done.
To be honest, i think i would have sacked her, imagine not sinking the boot into league when you get a chance like that, silly girl.
June 13th 2012 @ 10:57am
Australian Rules said | June 13th 2012 @ 10:57am | Report comment
Cam, lighten up…that comment doesn’t belong under this article.
Keep it up Kris.
June 14th 2012 @ 10:32am
micka said | June 14th 2012 @ 10:32am | Report comment
The final sentence was in there whether the article was primarily about it or not.
You just made the mistake of it being the most interesting yet needlessly catty part Krissy boy.
As if you weren’t going to get a couple of little jabs back.
June 13th 2012 @ 9:21am
Happy Hooker said | June 13th 2012 @ 9:21am | Report comment
Oh dear. It appears some have taken this article seriously!
June 13th 2012 @ 9:24am
Cameron said | June 13th 2012 @ 9:24am | Report comment
It does seriously reflect the persecutory complex that NRL fans have towards the AFL, yes.
June 13th 2012 @ 9:27am
Matt F said | June 13th 2012 @ 9:27am | Report comment
I’m pretty sure he was talking about Jonno?
June 13th 2012 @ 9:46am
JVGO said | June 13th 2012 @ 9:46am | Report comment
Are you AFL guys becoming not just a little precious but somewhat unhinged? This was a satirical article about the level of NRL journalism, with a smalll tag, like a 2 line twist in the tail mentioning AFL. And you are interpreting it as some sort of attack on AFL. Imagine if your game had have been attacked and torn apart by a nefarious venal corporation how you would have dealt with that. Same corporation in fact who is being targetted satirically in this article. What a coincidence.
June 13th 2012 @ 11:41am
Coasty said | June 13th 2012 @ 11:41am | Report comment
Very interesting Cameron. I did post a comment many weeks ago on a western club forum ” an Irishman told me that Lewis would play at centre “. I haven’t bothered with that heavy pseudonym site since.
Following on that we have seen some ‘Irishman” posting an article on this site.Recently there was an article under Steve Mascord’s name talking about the perils of reporters & their nemesis the editor & sub-editors. I answered that article with a story of the sacking in the 1930s of my grandfather, called the “Printer’ who was in charge of a string of country newspapers. Now we have another article about journalists’ impartiality, integrity & what may happen when they print something.
All I can ask is – Was Gloria a blonde, because that will make her a blonde Irish reporter !
As I recall my father telling me once that the fella on TV, Johnny (Lewis) the fight trainer was one of our mob, being an Irish-Australian. My dads family had lived around Marrickville/Newtown/Dulwich Hill after the Depression and no doubt there was social involvement with the Lewis’s at Church or the pub. Of course we’re Aussies first.
Anyway, we can’t tell the authenticity of the articles although we sure are suspicious & very doubtful as to being having a lend of. I believe that many of these stories & even some of the pseudonym answering, are doing this on behalf of & paid for by vested interests who want to publicise their product being football.
They may also be using all the responses as straw polls for market research.
June 13th 2012 @ 1:06pm
Meesta Cool said | June 13th 2012 @ 1:06pm | Report comment
AFL, there’s that acronym again, I just looked it up on Wickypaedia, It describes AFL as “a strange tribal sport played by teams of gawd knows how many players, with about seventeen officials that spend all day blowing their whistles for apparently nothing at all”..
It further goes on to say “Points are given for kicking the ball 10 metres high (Or more or Less) through goal posts where no one has a chance of stopping the ball, further scores can be given to a team missing the goal completely and going through another set of sticks or even by a defender kicking the ball into his own goal, When a ball goes through either the goals or the other posts, an official behind the goals does a sort of traditional ritual flag dance, which his mate at the other end copies, The final score needs a calculator to work out”, in all it seems like a good game to watch, if you could understand why they don’t pay knock ons and offside!!.
Maybe the moderator could put a block on any article or comment that contains this AFL acronym!. just in case us real people get infected by this viirus!
June 13th 2012 @ 5:27pm
The Cattery said | June 13th 2012 @ 5:27pm | Report comment
Meesta
spare a thought for the average AFL footballer aspiring to this standard of athleticism:
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/puppy-fat-or-a-saggy-dogs-story/story-e6frexni-1225702277122
June 14th 2012 @ 10:34am
micka said | June 14th 2012 @ 10:34am | Report comment
Looks like Idris actually lost a tonne of weight too quickly.
June 14th 2012 @ 10:29am
micka said | June 14th 2012 @ 10:29am | Report comment
As opposed to a game that has the entire end of each end of the field as a scoring zone? Once a score is made the same team just gets an arbitrary stab at scoring again in a completely different and non game related manner for no apparent reason, with two judges holding up flags for no reason to indicate whether it went through or not (despite the fact there is not another official at the other end who needs to also maintain the score card for verification).
It’s amazing how proud of their own ignorance the average RL supporter is.