Tomorrow’s fish and chip paper….Football365 reviews England’s sports newspapers
They say that the papers are today’s news is tomorrows fish and chip paper (does anyone ever have their chips wrapped in newspapers anymore?!) but there is such a diverse selection available especially where sports journalism is concerned. Below are a few extracts from the excellent Football365, where their writers spent a week reading each popular British newspaper’s sport section. Their articles are balanced, well written looks at the sports journalism available.
The Daily Mail
“I would never buy the Mail, however good its football coverage was because the newspaper’s beliefs, attitudes and politics utterly, utterly disgust me. All too often they play to the very worst of human nature and in doing so they diminish the joy of life. To be fair, its football coverage isn’t bad at all. Some of their writers are pompous old farts, some are lightweights, but overall it was all far less downmarket, bigoted and downright stupid than I feared it would be, and it contained some well-delivered firm opinion.”
The Daily Express
“There’s certainly none of the hysteria and this-country-is-going-to-the-dogs thundering that characterises the rest of the newspaper and has caused its reputation to plunge to an all-time low. Believe or not, Fulham FC is actually mentioned without reference to Al Fayed, Princess Diana, Prince Philip or MI5
What’s particularly surprising is the football department’s upbeat tone. It’s tabloidesque and lively rather than doom-mongering in the way that The Daily Mail likes nothing better than splashing an alleged crisis (real or looming) across its backpages. The Express, by contrast, is bright, breezy and positive”
The Daily Mirror
“The sensationalism grates something rotten. The need to make a story of absolutely nothing in my mind does not make for a appealing read. The stock words/phrases used generally in tabloids ticks me off too. Every refusal/turn down is a ’snub’. Every rebuttal is a ‘rap’ or a ‘blast’. It makes anyone reading it instantly feel like an idiot. Perhaps that’s the idea.”
The Times
“These days, any discussion of The Times’ football coverage has to begin with Martin Samuel. Appointed Chief Football Correspondent in the summer, he dominates the newspaper’s coverage in the way that you imagine his rotund figure would do a lift. ‘Prolific’ doesn’t quite do the volume of his work justice. Yet there is no suggestion of quantity reducing its quality. Samuel is one of the industry’s must-read columnists.
The Game (in Monday’s Times) is a good read. Perhaps too good. For the rest of the week, the newspaper’s coverage is a victim of its own success and suffers in comparison.For a heavyweight publication, the newspaper’s selection of pundits is surprisingly lightweight (with the exception of Gabriel Marcotti, another Monday fixture). This is a long-term fault.”
The Guardian
“A couple of years ago the Guardian became ‘Berliner’ sized, which is half-way between broadsheet and tabloid. And that just about sums up how they do football. It’s hardly intellectual or even particularly in-depth but it does avoid the WAG and bling-based version of the art form you might find in the tabloids and it doesn’t do punning headlines or manic abbreviations of players’ names. There’s no shortage of writers and columnists but too few of them have a unique voice.”
The Sun
“The fact is I simply don’t like The Sun at all. It’s like eating candy floss instead of a three-course dinner. I’m left with the feeling that if this is all you aspire to read you’re missing out on so much of the richness and diversity of football and of life.
The slurry of facile stories never stops: Spurs are eating baby food. James wants to play for England. Hargreaves wants to win everything. Ferguson doesn’t like Wenger. Wenger is pencil-thin. Giggs wants to win things. Joe Cole is Cole-d. Beckham won’t be loaned out. Ferguson thinks this is his best-ever squad. Fabregas eats creme eggs and drinks coke. Rooney is easily bored. And so it goes and so it goes and so it goes.”
Peter Evans – Sourced from the excellent Football365
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