Tag Archives: sports news sites

Nieman Lab: What we can learn from US sports journalists

Nieman Journalism Lab has an interesting post on recent innovations in online sports writing in the US.

Tim Carmody argues that all journalists, not just sports writers, can learn from developments the other side of the Atlantic.

The post directs us to SportsFeat “spotlighting well-crafted longform sports and sports-related writing”. Carmody explains that “most of the stories are current, but others reach into the archives even as they relate to the day’s news”.

Other sites to watch are Quickish, an aggregator of tweets and and SB Nation, which describes itself as “news, scores and fan opinion powered by 305 sports blogs” and a site former Engadget editor Joshua Topolsky, who is involved on the technology side, cites as “a testbed and lab for some of the newest and most interesting publishing tools I’ve ever seen”.

If there’s a common thread to all of these moves, it’s hybridisation and metastasis. The tools that drive compelling sports journalism on the web aren’t limited to sports. Nor are they exclusively held by sportswriters working for independent media companies.

As Rob Neyer wrote when he moved from ESPN to SB Nation, the new ethos in sports journalism, as elsewhere, seems to be breaking down the distinction between “us” and “them”. And this is a distinction that you can interpret much more broadly than one between writers and readers, pros and amateurs, sportswriting and non-sports writing. When the walls tumble, they tumble everywhere.

My bet is that this will be good for everyone – not just sports fans, sportswriters, and smart media companies, but everyone looking for new ways to read and write smart material on the web.

Nieman Lab’s full post is at this link.

Myfootballwriter.com: a lesson in going online

This blog post is part of the Carnival of Journalism hosted, this month, by Adrian Monck’s blog

In May, Rick Waghorn, founder of sports news website myfootballwriter.com, is hoping to attend a Las Vegas awards ceremony and hear whether his plans for sports news sites in the US will receive $2 million as part of the Knight News Challenge.

Yet, before the potential glitz and glamour of Vegas, myfootballwriter.com will compete in the EDF Energy East of England media awards (award ceremony: Whipsnade Zoo).

The site is in the running for the Website of the Year award and comes up against the site of Waghorn’s former employer, the Norwich Evening News, who after 14 years handed Waghorn a redundancy package and the financial – and personal – impetus to go it alone online.

Having started as a sports news site dedicated to Norwich City FC, myfootballwriter.com has since spawned an Ipswich Town site and in a recent recruitment drive attracted more than 70 young journalists to apply for reporting positions on new sites.

While the eveningnews24 site should be applauded for investing in its online operations, that myfootballwriter is competing directly against it is a case study in favour of the changing shape of the industry.

The site has used its online-only status – with no backing from a print product such as the Norwich Evening News or the same size editorial team – to its advantage: rolling deadlines mean rolling news coverage, while being dedicated to one locality and subject allows for more in-depth analysis and reporting.

What is more, Waghorn says he is still ‘a footsoldier’, attending matches and press conferences, filing reports and chasing transfer rumours. At the same time he can develop and innovate with the site – as he is doing with the plans to move into the US and the development of a locally-focused advertising system.

Waghorn stresses that he has by no means ‘cracked it’, yet what he has achieved so far should be used as an aspirational model by both his former paymasters at Archant and the rest of the print media in their attempts to ‘crack’ the online medium.