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AFL commentators and the dreaded 'b' word

Roar Rookie
8th June, 2015
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Roar Rookie
8th June, 2015
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2175 Reads

You must have been sleeping under a rock if you missed the biased commentary led by Basil Zempilas and the Channel Seven commentary team on Friday night, who couldn’t accept Richmond upsetting the Dockers on Fremantle’s home turf.

Twitter lit up, with viewers believing they were too focused on Fremantle – spurring them on, supporting passages of play involving one of the competition’s best players Nat Fyfe – rather than giving due credit to how hard Richmond fought to beat the previously undefeated Dockers.

Melbourne’s Christian Petracca took to Twitter to vent his opinion, “Is Richmond playing? Sounds like freo are the only team out their #commentators”

Viewers want to know about the match and how it has panned out, without biased supporting from people inside the commentary box.

Do Channel Seven or Fox Footy monitor what their employees say during a broadcast, and provide adequate training to these commentators?

Two of Melbourne’s best-known journalists, Damian Barrett and Craig Hutchison, present their opinions on different topics during the week, yet how many of you can name who they support? They don’t present biased opinions based on the clubs they support, they analyse the facts and report the news.

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AFL Champion Chris Judd went down on Saturday afternoon with a likely career-ending ACL injury. If he has to hang up his boots, Judd will be the prized recruit for radio and television stations across Melbourne, as he has the ability to provide an insight to the game others simply can’t.

Will Chris receiving training? Or will his ‘professional’ standards ensure that his views don’t present a biased view towards his past clubs?

There is nothing wrong with being a football supporter in the media, but leave it out of the broadcasts so that all fans can enjoy the broadcast of our great game. One can only hope that Friday night was a one-off, and that it will be addressed to ensure AFL broadcasts continue to be free from bias.

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