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State of Origin: Our media needs to grow up

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Roar Guru
7th July, 2015
6

Every year the hype surrounding State of Origin seems to get bigger and bigger; the excitement heading into the three games is sky-high, as reflected by the millions of people who tune in to watch.

Of course, this hype and anticipation can be put down to one thing – the media. However, it has become clear that their race to sell more newspapers has gone too far.

They are no longer reporting the news fairly, they are not even reporting the news with one eye painted blue or maroon, some of the articles are completely one-sided, biased rubbish.

More 2015 State of Origin:
» State of Origin news
» State of Origin fixtures
» State of Origin teams
» State of Origin 2015: Game 3 preview
» Why NSW will win Game 3
» Why the Maroons will win Game 3

These one-sided articles are not news, they are stories designed to create excitement and drive sales. It should go without saying that News Corp papers, The Daily Telegraph and Courier Mail, are the chief protagonists and their interstate bickering has spiralled out of control in recent years.

However, Fairfax papers are not immune to this, and from time to time The Sydney Morning Herald and Brisbane Times descend into this childish reporting.

The state favouritism started with fairly mature and respectable beginnings. Giving out free flags with a paper purchase, turning pages blue or maroon in the days leading up to the big game, articles about why NSW will win in the Telegraph, or why they won’t win in the Mail.

That sort of thing is an effective, ethical tool to foster state support.

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Even the Telegraph‘s decision to place a blue item of clothing on Greg Inglis every time a picture appeared of him in the lead up to Origin 1 this year was a bit of fun. He looked absolutely ridiculous with a blue wig or blue scarf superimposed, but it was harmless stuff. If anything, it was unoriginal and juvenile – everyone already knows that Inglis was born in NSW, there’s little need to keep highlighting the fact.

In the past few years, however, we have seen the newspapers descend into taking childish shots at the other state. The Telegraph knows exactly what they’re doing when they reach out to Tommy Raudonikis for a comment. They know he will deliver enough quotes to fill a phonebook.

In one particular article, riddled with ‘interesting’ quotes from Raudonikis, Paul Crawley went hard at the disloyal Maroons players, Greg Inglis and Daly Cherry-Evans, who backflipped on contracts or handshake agreements. According to Raudonikis this backflip was proof that they can’t be trusted to be loyal teammates and should never be trusted in war.

“He (Inglis) is the same, I wouldn’t like to be in a war with him either,” Raudonikis told us.

The constant bickering about the referees isn’t much better. The string of articles surrounding the referees claim that Billy Slater and Cameron Smith bully the refs into awarding favourable judgements. Laurie Daley’s secret pre-match meetings with the referees meant that the Blues held an unfair advantage in last year’s series.

These stories don’t even attempt to hide their bias, they flat-out accuse the referees of being swayed by players on the field. Even worse, they claim that the referees are allowing the opposition to cheat, often deliberately.

The unnecessary shots at opposition players or staff members are not news and they don’t belong in the paper. Printing a full-page photograph of Allan Langer and Trevor Gillmeister playing blackjack at the Crown Casino and using it as proof of the Maroons’ disrespect of the Blues is not good journalism, and to see it come from one of the Telegraph‘s editor-at-large, Phil Rothfield, is even more concerning.

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Rothfield was sent the photo on social media with no context and decided to publish it. What coaching staff do on their time off is their business, but Rothfield suggested that the two should have spent the evening in their room designing game plans for their players.

Firstly, if the Maroons are still coming up with game plans on the Saturday before kick-off, they are in big, big trouble. Game plans should have been made the day after Origin 1, not four days before Origin 2. Secondly, we don’t even know if Gillmeister and Langer are the coaches who are even responsible for game plans.

When the personal attacks in the papers started a few years ago, it started because the players weren’t saying anything interesting in their press conferences, if they were saying anything at all. The papers resorted to making things up, or embellishing through their articles. Initially, the players were very angry and quite upset when they read that they were a ‘cheat’ or a ‘grub’.

In fact, Queensland coach Mal Meninga was so angry that he wrote a 1277-word article back in 2011 that was effectively a whinge at the fact that people from NSW, sorry the “rats and filth”, were trying “to poison a monumental team with lies, personal attack, arrogance and disrespect”.

Meninga was angry that the NSW press claimed that he was not actually the head coach of the Maroons, assistant Michael Hagan was, and Mal was purely a motivator and not the key to the Maroons’ six straight series victories.

Just four years later, however, and the players and coaches seem to understand that the media is simply trying to make money. As a result, they have decided to take the hijinks to the next level. They are now more than willing to provide the media with a few inflammatory quotes as they understand that most things written in the rival state’s papers are not true. They’ve finally figured out that it’s not personal, allowing the papers to go even harder.

Unfortunately, though, this isn’t right. The media’s job is to report the news in a fair, balanced, accurate and ethical manner. Making things up or embellishing stories to drive hatred and disdain for a rival state is not their job.

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By turning the week before State of Origin into an absolute circus, the papers are peddling half-truths and misleading their readers. They are deliberately attempting to shape their readers’ views towards particular players. You might be saying that this sort of thing is rife in the News Corp papers, and that may be true, but that doesn’t make it right.

Look at it this way, if an American were to come to Sydney a week before State of Origin, knowing nothing about the sport of rugby league, and you handed them the Daily Telegraph each morning, what would they think?

They would think that the Maroons are all grubs, cheats who deliberately sway the referees, and that they are traitors. Said American would also think that the Blues players are angels who can do no wrong, that Paul Gallen is the courageous leader who will do whatever it takes to ensure a NSW victory.

Said American would be greatly misinformed.

That is proof that the media is not doing their job and that they have taken this too far.

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