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Yesterday I was in Dublin at Ireland’s national football and rugby stadium, covering the Irish men’s national team ahead of their upcoming friendly at home to England and their must-win Euro 2016 qualifier against Scotland the following week.
As part of the media, we are usually only allowed to watch the first 15 minutes of Irish manager Martin O’Neill’s training sessions, but yesterday was different as O’Neill had made the session open to the public.
Ireland trained for a little over 90 minutes and at the end of training players signed autographs for kids and fans alike. While the players were interacting with the fans, O’Neill was being interviewed by the Stadium announcer, the guy they get on game day to give the crowd a rev-up.
You know the guy I’m talking about, nearly every team has him; the guy who is way too passionate about the halftime show and who makes you at least question if this game was worth watching on television.
Well that guy, in his power stance, was asking O’Neill the typical stadium announcer questions such as what do you think of this crowd? Are you looking forward to Sunday?
But one question he did ask had one small section of the stadium in fits. It was the sports media in attendance and the question was “Has it been hard this week to keep the players off the pork pies and the soda pop?”
O’Neill paused and looked slightly bewildered and I genuinely wish I could’ve heard his answer over the laughter, but such was the case that it really didn’t matter because what was the point of the question. Pork pies sure, but when is the last time you’ve heard of an international sporting team that has been derailed by “soda pop”.
The laughter of the press box provided some light humour on an otherwise long day, but signalled a clear divide between the roles of the stadium announcer and the sports journalist.
After I pondered over the danger of pork pies and soda pop it was time to ask the real questions to O’Neill and some of the players. Generally the questions are the same. How did you feel about today’s session? What are your thoughts on the opponent? Can you give us an update on Player X?
Does it matter what questions we ask as long as we can put quotes together and make a story of it? The fact is in sports journalism you’re dealing with players who you need quotes from on a regular basis to maintain a working relationship and indeed a job.
Yes they have media obligations but your relationship with the player, your demeanour and the question asked largely has a big impact on the response you’re going to get. I’ve seen good responses given to bad questions and I’ve seen players dodge good ones, or at least try to, but I will concede that it’s a lot easier to ask questions that are positive than those that are negative.
This week we’ve arguably seen the sports story of the century, the FIFA corruption scandal, which has involved several high ranking officials in a multi-million dollar bribery scandal over a 24-year period.
To be able to break that story would be a dream and a career highlight for an aspiring sports journalist, exposing mass corruption in a billion dollar organisation in charge of the world’s most popular sport. But those stories are rare, it’s a lot harder to investigate and expose corruption or bribery than it is to write a match preview or a report.
Journalism and news in its essence is telling us news and information that was previously unknown to us, but sports journalism largely differs in this area as the majority of fans have already watched the game and are educated enough to process what has happened and what were the strengths and weaknesses of each team.
Consequently, a lot of the time you’re reaffirming someone’s views or going completely against it. It’s the yin and yang and it works to tremendous effect in sports broadcasting, but is sports reporting much different?
A lot of the time in journalism you have to fill the newshole, as sites like Fox Sports and many tothers can pump out upwards of 60 articles a day covering a range of sports, both on and off the field. I’m not trying to redefine sports journalism or re-invent the wheel here, but there is a tendency for drivel in this industry and it’s usually in the form of rumour mills and regurgitating old or even worse someone else’s news.
Sports journalism is a tremendous career if you can make it a full-time job but the fact is most of the time you’re going to be subject to cliche answers and run-of-the-mill stories. For every corruption case or off-field scandal, you are going to get dozens of “Is Rodgers time up” or “Hummels to Man United a done deal” stories.
It depends what you’re looking for, there are sites that are dedicated to opinion-based pieces and then there are reliable, trustworthy sports news sites, both have their merit and place within the sports media landscape.
However, the real challenge is dealing with what’s in the middle, and if you can tell or have a good sense for what’s fact or fiction, then you shouldn’t have a problem.
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