[Archived] TotW: Too Much Media Not Enough News ?

[Paul]

I hope Paul doesn't mind me hijacking his post and adding this to the top. I've taken his post as the starting point for a new feature. Topic of the Week. Basically a contentious issue in football we can generate some real good debate around. We'll keep it pinned for a week, then move on to a new subject. Enjoy - Glenn

-----------------------------------------

The Richard Keys / Andy Gray issue raises a lot of points for me. My view on their comments mirror something Nicky ????? (Five Live Breakfast) said, to paraphrase "It's Sky Sports, what do you expect?" Time was when the only source of football news was MOTD, the daily paper and the LET. These in their own way were events which helped to heighten the sense of excitment, it was part of the build up and wind down from the game. The thud of the LET landing in the porch was the signal for a dash to grab it first with the ensuing row over reading the paper over tea or when the kids needed a bath! It doesn't happen today because we can't escape the media. In the pub on Friday night I happened to be sat opposite the screen showing SSN with the volume off, I couldn't help thinking "do I need this?"

Too much media, not enough news? Every outlet is screaming for our attention with "headlines," "breaking news" much of which I personally distrust, I don't have time to discover if it is correct or not and immediately switch to "I'll believe it when I see it" mode. Have the sporting media created a monster which turns many away from it by creating so much out of nothing?

[Bobby G]

Rumors sell in football unfortunately. Gossip sells in entertainment.

[cruz]

Can't say I have ever bought a newspaper based on the headline. Especially the hogwash on the back page.

[Glenn]

The internet hasn't just moved the goal posts, it's now an entirely different sport.

I believe it was paper mogul Eddie Shah that said "It's only news until you've heard it", so whilst once the first time you'd hear about Rovers would be the LET landing on the doorstep (or for me, outside the LET catchment, when I bought a programme !), you now have hundreds of news outlets (us included) vying to be the ones who get that news to you first.

You also have the problem that everyone likes to be informed (especially if they can pass that knowledge onto others) , so they are constantly looking for that one source of info that can tell them *everything* about a subject. We score well on that because of the forums, but we do pretty poorly at converting small news into actual news articles.

... and you're right. I work all day with either SSN or BBC News open on a screen next to the one I'm working on. Does it improve my enjoyment of Rovers? Probably not at all. Would I miss it .... absolutely.

[Mattyblue]

Good idea Glenn!

You could get gossip back in the day. Who remembers 'ClubCall'? For £1 a minute you could ring up and find out what 'European hotshot' we had been linked with.

Gray and Keys need putting out to pasture, two dinosaurs that have been living off 'Super Dooper Sunday LIVE' razamataz for twenty years.

The LT is obviously going to suffer in a 24 hour news environment. By the time it is published I will have heard the Rovers news from about 5 different sources.

[only2garners]

Can't say I have ever bought a newspaper based on the headline. Especially the hogwash on the back page.

It would be interesting to know how old you are Cruz. I think Paul's point is not that it was wonderful when the main source of news was the local paper or that the paper was the font of all knowledge - more that that was all there was and that the arrival of the paper was therefore an event. For anyone in their twenties or younger it will seem unimaginable that Rovers fans had to rely on the LET for all their knowledge of Rovers but that was what it was like. I have never lived in Blackburn so didn't even have that when younger. In truth the stories on the back of the paper that often are hogwash are now drowned out by even more bizarre hogwash coming at us from all over the TV and net.

I have never had any interest in Sky Sports News but at least I did believe that what they reported usually had some semblance of fact until the day after Sam was sacked when they were reporting all day that John Williams and Tom Finn had resigned,"facts" that I knew were completely made up, but which were used to keep the Sam story alive on a day when not much else was happening.

[cruz]

My late teens involved looking forward to the end of the working day so I could see the LET A-boards on the way home and find out who King Kenny had signed next.

Since SSN was taken off freeview I cannot say I have missed it.

[chris]

I wish to point out that too many of our island neighbours have once again let themselves be bullied by United States industry. The story is an old one, the record a clear one.

Since my historic statement of principles was delivered and acted upon some six months ago, our economic outlook has improved dramatically. By exercising our policy of friendship to all with favouritism towards none, new respect for the entire area has been injected.

And even though some of my...

Sky sports is great.

[PAFELL]

Can't say I have ever bought a newspaper based on the headline. Especially the hogwash on the back page.

These days is there any need to buy any newspaper. Most news is on the internet / tv. Even though I live in the south of the uk, if I want news from more or less anywhere in the world - or a local uk channel - there will be a tv channel or internet link somewhere. I cannot remember the last time I have bought a newspaper - as it is that long ago - yet am up to date with news I want to know about.

[sparkspakespoke]

Good idea Glenn!

You could get gossip back in the day. Who remembers 'ClubCall'? For £1 a minute you could ring up and find out what 'European hotshot' we had been linked with.

Gray and Keys need putting out to pasture, two dinosaurs that have been living off 'Super Dooper Sunday LIVE' razamataz for twenty years.

The LT is obviously going to suffer in a 24 hour news environment. By the time it is published I will have heard the Rovers news from about 5 different sources.

Club call! I was just thinking that. I remember when teltext was the most up to date source of Rovers news, one short page covering the biggest of football stories concisely.

We now have a million different sources giving us almost the same stories. The facts rarely change from source to source we just end up reading opinion in the most part, maybe we should read less rehashed stories and spend more time formulating our own opinions? However as Glenn says it is so addictive, I too spend my working day with this site, sky sports and bbc news open!

[Glenn]

By the way, ClubCall is still going (kind of). I did some work for their parent company (who provided content for all kinds of organisations, including TeamTalk I believe). It was a very odd place to see, a mixture of technology and old school journos with whiteboards, notepads and shouting, all in one huge room.

[Simon Says]

Gray and Keys need putting out to pasture, two dinosaurs that have been living off 'Super Dooper Sunday LIVE' razamataz for twenty years.

Proof of that

[tony gale's mic]

This isn't just confined to football, it's confined to all news really. Anyone who's seen the excellent Newswipe with Charlie Brooker will have seen what an awful thing the advent of 24 hour news has been. Raoul Moat anyone?

[Simon Says]

You can listen to the dinosaurs here

But its OK, they are very sorry and have apologised.

Sorry for what they said, or sorry for getting caught out?

[Jim Royle]

I don't suppose this topic is related in any way shape or form to the fact that both you and kamy "fell for one" last week?

[Glenn]

I don't suppose this topic is related in any way shape or form to the fact that both you and kamy "fell for one" last week?

No, it's in response to people crying out for some better debate on here.

[S15]

I was all up for Keysey and Co to be moved on but having heard that I'd give 'em new bumper contracts and then get Big Ron in Jamie's chair.

[Glenn]

This isn't just confined to football, it's confined to all news really. Anyone who's seen the excellent Newswipe with Charlie Brooker will have seen what an awful thing the advent of 24 hour news has been. Raoul Moat anyone?

Whilst already off-topic (sorry), Charlie Brooker's excellent fake news report on how formulaic TV news reports have become is below (warning, contains a couple of naughty words, so probably NSFW).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtGSXMuWMR4

Back in 2006 (when BRFCS was the bastion of civilised debate .... honest ....) He did a great piece for the Guardian on the futility of internet debating. I don't agree with it all (there are some exceptions that prove the rule) but it's still rather good.

http://www.guardian.....charliebrooker

Anyway. Back to Paul's original point. Are we bombarded with too much irrelevant news, or has our lust for info just increased? I think it's a mixture of both. As an experiment today, I turned off SSN and twitter and listened to a podcast whilst I worked and I'm already getting withdrawal symptoms. What if we're linked with some Argentinian wonder kid and I'm the last to know? I think in many ways, we're at fault for demanding the information overload in the first place.

[Paul]

Blackpool skipper goes to war over Kop move - says a folded tabloid in the sandwich shop I visited at lunch time. I don't know which one it was but I've a horrible feeling it will prove to be The Mirror, which wasn't the point of this thread!

So just to be desperately middle-class I take note of stuff I read in The Guardian, Telegraph, Independent and Observer. If the BBC report Shearer and Dalglish will be up front for Rovers next Saturday I'll be there (TBH I don't know who we've got next weekend!). Considered quality journalism. I feel it's quality media and reporting we need not ridiculous headlines about one of our targets "going to war" for pity's sake. SSN and the tabloids are largely responsible for this with their never ending efforts to sell media using articles and items which are formulaic and lacking in any sort of English language. Paragraphs? Sentences if you're lucky. Even the BBC is guilty of over-exposing and milking what was once good broadcast journalism. There is just so much football or football related content on Five Live it makes the station hardly worth listening to, all we get is another ex-pro trying to carve a media career once his playing days are over. A few are OK, step forward Gally, Savage and Steve Claridge but most of them make me want to listen to someone running finger nails down a blackboard.

Take last night's 606, a great programme when it begin, on a SATURDAY, after the footie. We had Alan "I am God" Green prattling on in his usual self-opinionated manner about the Spurs / West Ham move to the Olympic stadium for nearly 60 minutes This from the man who claims he is nothing more than a voice for the fans views. Ha! 606 started really well years ago but is now over-exposed and flooded with presenters trying to be somebody's "mate" on the radio. Give me strength.

[nicko]

Blackpool skipper goes to war over Kop move - says a folded tabloid in the sandwich shop I visited at lunch time. I don't know which one it was but I've a horrible feeling it will prove to be The Mirror, which wasn't the point of this thread!

Blackpool skipper asks for move at lunchtime.

You would have known that if you had bought the Mirror.

Keep up.

[seekay]

There's so much news now it becomes monotonous, although I still read it because it's there and it's free. I stick to BRFCS and LET for all things Rovers, and BBC and Guardian for the rest. That's enough to get me through the day. Gone are the days when the first time you knew of some event was when you read the headlines like "Fred Pickering transferred to Everton for 50000 quid". That shock effect is missing. Actually Venkey's sacking of BFS was proper old-fashioned type news like that.

[deftangel]

It's not that there is too much "news" at all, it's that there isn't enough.

The news that does exist is devalued in the context of 24 hour news channels and the online publishers ever thirsty for clicks, clicks and more clicks. The culture now is being *first* is much more important than anything else, including quality and accuracy. Second to being first is giving the impression that *something* is always happening, so what news there is is split up into bite size chunks in order to pad it out throughout the day. It needs to keep you clicking or watching. It's a war on attention because that is the only thing they can sell to advertisers. Online or off.

These are the reasons Sky Sports News reports in a loop every 30 minutes and we get the endless footage of empty microphones before a press conference or someone leaving a training ground that Brooker is so fond of mocking.

The attention war is only exacerbated by social media which is a genuine case of information overload / too much stuff. It's very hard for people to pick out the value but that's a curation problem, which will eventually get solved. Certainly quicker than the previous incumbents will exit out of their race to the bottom in an asymmetric war they aren't going to win.

[brfcshabba]

I use Newsnow which used to be a good source of links. But it is amazing the amount of garbage that appears on there these days.

"Tottenham Set to Seal Incredible £26m Signing"

"Sunderland after £30 Million rated Brazilian monster to provide the goals"

"Tottenham Plan £8m Move to Sign Manchester United Midfielder"

Quite clearly all made up without any substance whatsoever.

Yes they can be blocked but what makes it worse is when fans take these rumours as gospel.

I always look back to the bulgarian striker Valeri Domovchiyski where I believe somebody on here added he had run under 10 seconds for the 100 metres in Bulgaria which was reported by all the major sites such as BBC and SKY, good bit of Wiki research they did there

[Glenn]

I always look back to the bulgarian striker Valeri Domovchiyski where I believe somebody on here added he had run under 10 seconds for the 100 metres in Bulgaria which was reported by all the major sites such as BBC and SKY, good bit of Wiki research they did there

One of the best cases of this was The Mirror caught by a little wikipedia vandalism

http://www.b3ta.com/links/Lazy_Journalist (The main story is safe for work, but even though I've not checked, I'd imagine as it's on b3ta, some of the comments will have naughty words in them).

Sorry, pulling this thread off topic twice in one day, but it does raise an interesting point, has our demand for more news more quickly, forced the media to put less effort into generating it, in the name of speed ?

[jim mk2]

Gone are the days when the first time you knew of some event was when you read the headlines like "Fred Pickering transferred to Everton for 50000 quid". That shock effect is missing. Actually Venkey's sacking of BFS was proper old-fashioned type news like that.

Still remember that... picking up the LET and the 144pt front page banner headlines saying Fred had signed for Everton. The shock ! The horror ! People do not understand that there was no internet and no local radio in those days so we relied on the LET and the Blackburn Times for all Rovers news and comment. Anyone remember the Saturday sport Pink 'UN with the latest goals and goalscorers in the Stop Press column ?

I still find it hard to believe that people do not buy a newspaper if only for some of the superb comment and top-class writing. It's so enjoyable to sit down and read the paper (and take it with you) without having to stare at a computer screen or mobile phone. People who do not buy a newspaper are missing so much information and entertainment for a very small price.

I also take issue with those people who turn their noses up at the red-top tabloids. Tabloid journalism is an art in itself that requires economy of words without losing the essence and flow of a story. Many broadsheet journalists have been unable to adapt to the demands (and sometimes higher) standards of tabloid newspapers. It takes skill to write in 150 words a story that would take up 500 words in a broadsheet.

As for 24-hour "rolling" news - no thank you. The equivalent of fast food versus a proper cooked meal.

Give me a good newspaper anyday which I can read and digest at my leisure.