Tag Archives: football

Scotland on Sunday: Rangers bans BBC from press conference

Rangers football club, which filed for administration this afternoon, has banned the BBC from its press conferences as part of an ongoing row between the club and the broadcaster.

Scotland on Sunday reported yesterday that the BBC was banned from recording a post-match conference because of what the club described as “repeated difficulties” over its treatment by the broadcaster.

The paper said: “After the club’s 4-1 victory over Dunfermline Athletic, listeners to Radio Scotland’s Sportsound programme heard BBC reporter Chris McLaughlin state that a Rangers press officer had stopped him recording. A witness said: ‘He was asked to remove his microphone and the conference carried on.'”

The Drum: Newspapers ‘could introduce football Twitter reporter role’

The Drum is reporting that national newspapers “could introduce football Twitter reporter role”. That’s according to Henry Winter, Daily Telegraph football correspondent and columnist for the Sunday Telegraph.

@henrywinter has more than 100,000 Twitter followers.

“I think each sports desk could have someone solely concentrating on Twitter,” Winter said. “They’d talk to the fans about what’s happening during the game and report on the match as it is happening.

“I did an experiment where I spent a whole match not writing a report for the paper but just talking to fans on Twitter. The response was incredible.”

Speaking at the MPA’s National Newspaper Debate in Manchester, Winter said the thousands of messages he receives online had begun to inform his reporting.

Winter goes on to discuss how Twitter brings him closer to his audience but warned of the dangers or entering disputes with readers.

The Drum’s full article is at this link.

Football365 pens open letter criticising the Sun for Capello coverage

Football news and forum site Football365 has posted an open letter to the Sun, criticising the paper’s back page lead yesterday on England manager Fabio Capello.

Our fear is that this campaign is being waged not because the tabloid press truly believe that Capello is in the wrong (…) but largely out of spite because they didn’t get their way after the summer and he stayed on.

The site is of course part of the 365 Media Group, which is owned by BSkyB, part of the Murdoch empire that also includes the Sun.

‘We will not be held to ransom’, Bournemouth Echo warns Southampton FC

Bournemouth Echo sports editor Neil Meldrum says the paper “will not be held to ransom” by Southampton Football Club, which recently announced plans to ban press photographers and syndicate the club’s own photographs of the team’s home matches.

Mr Cortese [executive chairman] clearly thinks his club will make a buck or two by syndicating pictures taken by their own man. I’ve got news for you, Nicola: You won’t.

If newspapers hate one thing, it is the greed of people like you and we press people tend to stick together in defiance of arrogance.

Yes, the Echo has let its readers down today by not printing pictures of last night’s match.

But we will not be held to ransom by the likes of Nicola Cortese.

Full post on the Bournemouth Echo blog at this link…

Manchester Evening News lets football fans take over its masthead

Much has been written about the positives and negatives of personalised features on news websites, from user profiles to personalised homepages.

For me the Manchester Evening News has got its personalisation priorities right: registered readers can now choose between a blue masthead, designed for Manchester City fans; or keep the site’s traditional red colour theme if you a Manchester United fan.

(NB – for those of you that know my football allegiances please note that logging in as a blue was purely for work purposes)

Radio 5 Live’s Big Mexican Wave digital project

England fans might be desperately trying to sell on their World Cup tickets, but there’s still time to join a Mexican wave in support for the remaining teams playing in South Africa.

BBC’s Radio 5 Live is building an online Mexican Wave, as its special Twitter account advertises:

Join the mother of all Mexican Waves with BBC Radio 5 Live for 2010 World Cup! Dizzee Rascal, Miley Cyrus & Richard Hammond are in, are you?

To be included, users upload need to upload a photo as described at this link. This generates a Mexican Wave video containing the user’s photo, and photos of Radio 5 live and Radio 1 presenters and celebrities; the user will also be included in the 5 Live Mexican Wave.

The latest news? @bigmexicanwave says the former morning doyen of Radio 2 might be making an appearance too:

There’s a rumour we’ve got the godfather of radio, Mr @terry_wogan to do a #bigmexwave. Watch this space!

TheGame: How World Cup journalism works

The phone goes. It is the newsdesk. “We need you to go and find North Korean fans now,” comes the instruction. “There aren’t any,” I helpfully reply. “Don’t care. There must be at least one. Go and find him.”

Hmmm. I am in Soccer City, the North Koreans are at Ellis Park across the City. I have only a couple of hours to kick-off, no North Korean contact – but then, who has? – and no ideas, except for simply standing outside the ground and waiting for a North Korean to arrive. This is not time quibble because the message from the newsdesk is that this is a “must-have” story. Foreign correspondents in South Korea and Japan are filing dispatches and Jonathan Clayton, our correspondent in Johannesburg, has been stationed outside the team hotel. I have 800 words to write on the mysterious North Korean fans. Oh dear.

Times reporter Kevin Eason gives a great, first-hand account of tracking down stories – and North Korea fans – at the World Cup. It’s a story of shoe leather, pressure and a little bit of luck as a reward for doggedly chasing leads. Would be interesting to know if any World Cup reporters are using social media shoe leather too?

Full post at this link…

When Saturday Comes: How Twitter has changed football reporting

Football magazine When Saturday Comes looks at how Twitter use by football journalists is changing football reporting, as it encourages debate around news and makes journalists more accountable to fans:

Before social media created a two-way conversation on the internet, a journalist would only have had their editor and probably the manager of the club they reported on to answer to. They could print stories knowing they would not be asked to justify them to the ordinary football fan. But it’s different now for those who have chosen to set up Twitter accounts. They are pulled up on any factual errors in their stories, asked to reveal their sources and generally badgered by their followers (…) it’s a great way of taking the temperature of a club’s fans. You get to understand how they feel about certain players and managers, and what they believe are their biggest issues and concerns. Official site https://22bet-in.org/ in India: Play and bet for real money and for free.

Of course, journalists should probably know this kind of thing but you can sometimes get caught up in the bubble of press conferences and talking to colleagues, and not realise what the real problems are.

Full story at this link…

Is there life after a journalism course? The Coventry Class of 2009 – Greg Keane

At the end of the academic year John Mair, senior lecturer in broadcasting at Coventry University, asked just what would happen to his undergraduate journalism class of 2009. In the face of the biggest media recession for many a generation where do they go? Is there life after a journalism course? A few months on, we are re-visiting the students.

Greg Keane graduated with a  2.1  in journalism and media from Coventry University last June. He has turned a specialist interest into a small niche in journalism, non-league football.

It’s pointless to send away your CV in pursuit of that first job without any kind of meaningful credential except a degree in journalism.

Despite being warned on countless occasions that work will not simply come to you on the back of a university course, I arrogantly – as I am sure is the case for many of my peers – did not take much heed of the advice.

I applied for trainee jobs advertised on sites such as this one, thinking – almost without doubt – that my 2:1 in journalism and media earned in June this year was easily enough to merit me at least an interview.

Thankfully, reality set in soon enough after early knock-backs. I realised that only with proactivity would I make a name for myself.

An article in which I described my home town football club Luton Town as ‘the most exciting club in England’ generated a large amount of debate across many football forums, as fans struggled to work out whether the title was a question, or in fact a statement.

I had sent the article to the presenter of BBC London’s Non-League Football Show and pitched an idea to her about regularly updating fans on the Hatters’ often turbulent existence throughout the upcoming football league (or non-league as is the case) campaign.

She loved the idea and published the article although I was inaccurately described as ‘a Luton Town fan blogger’  (a description which is wrong on two counts: I was/am neither a blogger of Luton Town, nor a fan! Like many sports writers, I too won’t disclose the identity of the club I support. It isn’t one of the big four by the way).

The piece got significant interest and found its way being discussed on a number of football forums and I even received praise from Luton Town chairman and BBC Midlands Today presenter Nick Owen, via email.

I now regularity contribute features for the BBC London pages on a variety of non-league sides, for example. (Examples of my work here).

After this, I was asked to produce features for the site www.nonleaguefootballlive.com on a freelance basis. This has provided a tremendous platform on which to make a name for myself in a community which may be large, but lacking in many alternative avenues of information and reports from their clubs.

I have since become ‘chief reporter’ for the site and my articles stimulate much debate on the site’s own lively forum as well as clubs’ own message boards.

An article I wrote documenting the plight of Wrexham FC and their supporters seemed also to strike a chord with the Guardian’s David Conn who praised my article – recently he wrote a piece highlighting the trouble Wrexham supporters had trying to protect their ground.

Non League Football Live also has plans to launch a magazine in the coming weeks which they have asked me to play a big part in it.

But I haven’t confined myself to reporting: I have taken up a role as press secretary for the famous Corinthian Casuals in South London/Surrey and that position guarantees that my reports get published in around 14 ‘thisislocallondon’ newspapers and their online sites and one national, the Non-League Paper, which comes out every Sunday across the UK. Casuals are a club steeped with history so there is plenty of scope there to carve out a story.

And radio too: after a couple months of one day a week work experience at Mercia Radio in Coventry, my efforts paid off when they signed a deal to commentate on Coventry City matches.

I now do some paid assistant producing on the Tom Ross ‘Goalzone’ show. I control the studio and the commentator throughout a 3-4 hour show.

It is frantic work but it is enjoyable and certainly gets the adrenaline running. I also provide Mercia with a regular Sky Blues blog – another home for my work.

Unexpectedly, I foresee my future in sports reporting now, especially after finding a niche for myself in non-league football. It may not be glamorous or particularly exciting for many, but I enjoy it and hope that in the not too distant future, there will be a permanent job offer.