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MASCORD: Sports writers have a duty to report on Souths debacle

13th February, 2015
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Souths boss Shane Richardson (AAP Image/Paul Miller)
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13th February, 2015
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Whenever we have alleged cover-ups or Mad Monday stake-outs, I feel like a media studies lecturer when I get on social media – without the pay packet.

The amazing thing is that while my colleagues complain about trolls and block people, I almost always have constructive conversations and correspondents at least end up understanding my point of view, even if they don’t agree with it.

But it’s draining.

So please excuse me while I kick off this week’s column by talking about the football. I’ll make a couple of points about Arizonagate at the end.

Even though it’s been missing for a year, the All Stars game needs a reboot. The introduction of a third team, the Pacific All Stars, would do the trick. So would a return to Suncorp Stadium, or even a move to another non-rugby league capital.

After tonight’s game I’m off straight to Manchester for the World Club Series and Challenge and this is a competition which has enormous potential.

There are, of course, limits to what can be done in a finite pre-season – a proper round-robin tournament is a bridge too far for the time being.

But what is to stop Catalan and the New Zealand Warriors being permanent fixtures, making it more international? And what is to stop a seeded draw and the addition of one more game – the final.

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The highest ranked team from one comp would play the lowest ranked from the other in the main fixtures so winning your domestic comp would give you an advantage.

So Souths would play Catalan, St Helens would play the Warriors, Wigan would play Canterbury. If Souths and St Helens both win, into the final. But if they lose we compile a competition table to determine the two finalists.

The mathematicians out there would be able to come up with a fair handicapping system. In any case, the concept should attract bids from cities in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and perhaps even places like Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

And it would be nice if it was left out of the next TV deals so it could turn a coin that way too.

Finally, just a couple of points on the Souths Saga which seems to be reaching its conclusion.

“The public’s need to know” can never be measured. And as colleague Roy Masters points out, reporters do feel a “need to tell”. It is not, as some have said, primarily about job advancement or selling papers.

It runs much deeper than that. I still feel sick – and I mean that, physically sick – about having written a comment piece this week that was critical of Shane Richardson, who I regard as a good, honest man. I wrote it because I had to be consistent with previous stories about the same subject.

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I wrote it out of something which I will never convince some of you that reporters have: a sense of duty. I am not for a minute comparing a football story to the things war correspondents go through but I think that even if you don’t accept I have a sense of duty, you should probably accept they do.

So if reporters feel a “need to tell” and the “right to know” cannot be measured, where is the dividing line between what is fair game and what isn’t?

A sports writer’s job is to tell you why teams win or lose. When a star player is stood down for months, as was the case with Ben Barba, and a premiership contender becomes an also-ran, it is the sports writer’s job to tell you why. The same goes for a change of captain.

So, bloke gets arrested for peeing in a corner – I don’t care. Bloke has to change clubs because his wife had an affair with the coach – do care because the impact crosses the sideline.

If the sports reporter cannot cover these essential issues that impact on the fortunes of a team, he is nothing more than a PR man. He is as shallow, expedient, glad-handing hanger-on – as some people seem to think we all are anyway.

That’s where I draw the line. That’s why the circumstances surrounding South Sydney’s change of captain are completely within the remit of the media to cover, in my humble opinion.

I completely respect your opinion maybe different. But maybe you understand mine better than you did when you started reading this column.

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Now off to the football. My head hurts.

Steve invites you to follow the World Club Challenge and Series at @WClubChallenge and on Facebook.

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