Is Rugby Losing out in the Australian media?

[emuarse]

I notice that in The Australian daily newspaper that only Brett Harris is reporting on rugby.
Wayne Smith, who was able to put a great slant on all things rugby, is currently in the West Indies covering the test cricket between Pina Coladas. Yesterday there was no journalist accredited with the two articles appearing and both were also in the Sydney Morning Herald.
In Reds territory, the Courier Mail's Jim Tucker must be on holidays (I guess), because there have been no articles on rugby since the beginning of the week with an article on Sam Lane.
What is worrying is that there is no critique of coaches or players, no 'what ifs', just the basic facts with the odd bit of speculation e.g. Sheenan possibly playing halfback against Scotland, but then just quoting him.
It seems to me like Rupert Murdoch's editors are all too keen to promote AFL (Geelong rover damages little toe & might have to piroutte to the right rather than the left for the next game against the Lions, but Lions coach Voss says they ......) or Rugby league, with continual discussion about shoulder charging & the unfairness of suspensions - big deal. Even soccer is getting a fuller coverage with its year round local tournaments (although their A-league seems to be falling apart) not to mention the overseas coverage of soccer gets greater coverage which doesn't even involve Australia, whereas New Zealand & South African Super 15 & national sides with whom we regularly compete in union hardly get a mention.
Internationally, rugby is growing very rapidly whereby it is clearly the second most popular footy game played & followed.
Is the ARU sitting on its bum when it comes to promoting the game to the media?
What should be done to increase the awareness level of rugby? Should more effort be directed to getting a greater share of free-to-air games which in turn would increase media attention.

 

[Karl]

I think we made similar posts almost simultaneously.

The Rugby needs more free to air exposure and someone needs to be feeding the Journo's story opportunities. The ARU needs to get a feel for which of the players are proper public "properties" and leverage off them better to raise awareness. Players like Cooper, O'Connor, Pocock etc. The Super Rugby teams need to be doing more in their own States - I mean they have it all to themselves, they should be able to get coverage. It's not like being a League team in Sydney.

 

[wamberal]

The Oz has had pretty good rugby coverage for the last few years. However, all newspapers are under cost pressures because of falling circulation.

This is having some predictable effects. The SMH, traditionally an upmarket newspaper is bolstering its loig coverage to try to attract more bogans in its circulation (it already has the rugby demographic). On the other hand, the Daily Terrorgraph has improved its rugby coverage, trying to expand its bogan demographic by attracting some rah rahs.

The only time we can really expect decent coverage is when the Test season rolls around.

 

[barbarian]

Jim Tucker was at Augusta covering the Masters.

 

[Newter]

Nah, all sports journos are idiots as a rule. Not just rugby. League only had one interesting columnist, and that was Phil Gould who has another job now.

I think Ewen McKenzie's work in the smh each Thursday is excellent.

 

[Bardon]

The future of news and sports reporting especially is increasingly online rather than in the dying medium that is print news. Increasingly print news are looking to sensationalism and the "big stories" to sell new papers. So the bigger sports get more coverage and the others get even less.

In the past when news media cared, at least a little, about the quality of their output, sports like rugby had dedicated reporters. Now increasingly it comes under the remit of the sports reporter who has to cover a multitude of sports and only gets around to writing about rugby when it's been a slow news week for the bigger sports.

Online the reporting by the large news outlets is equally poor, but with the bonus that they can use google ads to better target their precious advertising at you.

Unless Rugby is already a big sport in a nation, like England, NZ etc. or where there is enough passion for the sport, like here in Ireland, then the quality reporting that it deserves will not be delivered by the large media outlets as it simply doesn't sell.

Rather the future is in sites like GAGR where the passion and knowledge does exist. There have been some excellent articles on here many of which would stand up against, sometimes surpass, articles that you have to pay to read. So one way to improve the report and expose of Australian Rugby would be to spread the word about GAGR.

 

[Blue]

The future of news and sports reporting especially is increasingly online rather than in the dying medium that is print news. Increasingly print news are looking to sensationalism and the "big stories" to sell new papers. So the bigger sports get more coverage and the others get even less.

I'm afraid you are right. Rugby needs some mining billionaires who create a renegade body, a few girlfriend beaters, pissers in public, betting scandals and a kiwi hotel group humping.

It's all too bloody stiff upper lip private school for too many peeps to care.

 

[Crashy]

Nice call blue! You should hear the soccer zealots carry on about about the media hates them. It's makes youn cringe.

 

[Juan Cote]

The problem with the current group of journos is that they are all happy to swallow whatever line is given them by the ARU. Bret Harris was given the annual report in last week's Oz presumably by the ARU and wrote a piece that absolved the ARU of all responsibility in relation to financial result. The blame was laid at the feet of the Rebels and the IRB.

There was no critical analysis of the results or what they mean for Aust rugby in the years to come and no questioning of what, if anything, the ARU is doing about finding new revenue streams.

For years Grumbles has been JO'Ns go to man for printing selected leaks but now with him stepping back from writing this year, the ARU is clearly grooming Bret Harris at the Oz to be the new mouth-piece

The fact Wayne Smith is now covering cricket despite being Australia's top rugby writer for the last 15 years to me suggests there has been some influence by the ARU to get him off their back.

I was dismayed to read that the ARU had paid for a Fairfax journo to travel to PNG to write a puff-piece about Will Genia and his family. The article was fine, but when the ARU is essentially paying for it to be written, where is the value in it?

 

[RedsHappy]

The problem with the current group of journos is that they are all happy to swallow whatever line is given them by the ARU. Bret Harris was given the annual report in last week's Oz presumably by the ARU and wrote a piece that absolved the ARU of all responsibility in relation to financial result. The blame was laid at the feet of the Rebels and the IRB.

There was no critical analysis of the results or what they mean for Aust rugby in the years to come and no questioning of what, if anything, the ARU is doing about finding new revenue streams.

For years Grumbles has been JO'Ns go to man for printing selected leaks but now with him stepping back from writing this year, the ARU is clearly grooming Bret Harris at the Oz to be the new mouth-piece

The fact Wayne Smith is now covering cricket despite being Australia's top rugby writer for the last 15 years to me suggests there has been some influence by the ARU to get him off their back.

I was dismayed to read that the ARU had paid for a Fairfax journo to travel to PNG to write a puff-piece about Will Genia and his family. The article was fine, but when the ARU is essentially paying for it to be written, where is the value in it?

What I find staggering Cote is how the ARU has now declaimed the need for Wallaby squad cost cuts, the lowering of its $ grants to franchises, etc, yet can somehow contemplate affording for Georgina Robinson of the SMH to go on an all expenses paid trip to PNG to write pieces like this and cover PNG rugby. Yes, that's maybe 'just' a few grand overall, but surely you have to show players, fans, the franchises decent consistency of policy and business principles, otherwise where is the integrity?

 

[wamberal]

What I find staggering Cote is how the ARU has now declaimed the need for Wallaby squad cost cuts, the lowering of its $ grants to franchises, etc, yet can somehow contemplate affording for Georgina Robinson of the SMH to go on an all expenses paid trip to PNG to write pieces like this and cover PNG rugby. Yes, that's maybe 'just' a few grand overall, but surely you have to show players, fans, the franchises decent consistency of policy and business principles, otherwise where is the integrity?

Has it occurred to you that they might actually know what they are doing, and have good reasons to do it? All we know is what we see, we do not know whether, for example the PNG authorities are considering putting money into an Olympic Sevens programme with publicity like this being seen as an incentive, or whether the terms of the Australian Government funding for rugby in the Pacific require the ARU to spend some money on promotion. We do not know how much the trip cost, maybe Qantas provided the travel gratis. Who knows? A trip to PNG probably costs as much as a trip to Perth, and nobody would complain about that, I hope.

One thing is for sure, Georgina Robinson is a bloody good journalist and if she, and her newspaper, are being encouraged to write more colour stories about rugby, that has to be a good thing.


We are all complaining about the quality and depth of rugby coverage at the moment, stories like this are worth more than they cost.

 

[RedsHappy]

They are wamberal many things we don't know, so how can I argue with you. But I personally agree with Cote that it's certainly debatable as to whether any professional sporting code should be paying for journalists (that are themselves paid to write about that code) to write stories about itself. This challenges objectivity and a lack of bias which is purportedly at the centre of good journalistic practise and a healthy media.

As I said, the cost of these jaunts may in $ terms be low, but I would rather the ARU spends the allegedly declining $s it receives from we fans and media deals etc on the very core of what truly drives the code's success, which is NOT media stories about top players, but sustained success on the grass and the development of good players at all levels.

 

[wamberal]

The success of the code depends on the media deals, basically, in the professional world we now inhabit. The media deals depend, basically, on the popularity of the game. We have to spend money in different ways, including on the grassroots and the elite players, but if we do not find ways to attract new viewers to spend money to watch the game, live or on the box, we will be dead.

 

[Newter]

What I find staggering Cote is how the ARU has now declaimed the need for Wallaby squad cost cuts, the lowering of its $ grants to franchises, etc, yet can somehow contemplate affording for Georgina Robinson of the SMH to go on an all expenses paid trip to PNG to write pieces like this and cover PNG rugby. Yes, that's maybe 'just' a few grand overall, but surely you have to show players, fans, the franchises decent consistency of policy and business principles, otherwise where is the integrity?

Since when was "integrity" a business principle?

 

[Schadenfreude]

Since when was "integrity" a business principle?

I think he was talking about journalism.

 

[Gnostic]

The biggest problem has been that News owned the NRL. They do still have a stake in the Storm and the Broncos unless I am mistaken. They would then have a vested interest in promoting those brands as heavily as possible to ensure they get their money back. Journalistic integrity has been a myth in so many areas for a long time IMO, take the Phone hacking scandal as an example.

Ironically the best Rugby coverage in OZ has been for years provided by the ABC. The weekly wrap of Super Rugby and commentary by Brett Papworth and Co is unrivaled by any other commenatry in Oz. In this I don't think that we are alone as the reporting in NZ and commentary is as poor as ours and SA better. The best top level commentary and News is in Britain from my trawling the net for Rugby stories, video.

 

[Schadenfreude]

The biggest problem has been that News owned the NRL. They do still have a stake in the Storm and the Broncos unless I am mistaken. They would then have a vested interest in promoting those brands as heavily as possible to ensure they get their money back. Journalistic integrity has been a myth in so many areas for a long time IMO, take the Phone hacking scandal as an example.

Ironically the best Rugby coverage in OZ has been for years provided by the ABC. The weekly wrap of Super Rugby and commentary by Brett Papworth and Co is unrivaled by any other commenatry in Oz. In this I don't think that we are alone as the reporting in NZ and commentary is as poor as ours and SA better. The best top level commentary and News is in Britain from my trawling the net for Rugby stories, video.

Obviously not Scottish...

Sports coverage in the UK is terrible, if only for the completely biased reporting of EVERYTHING towards England. I had to stop watching cricket while I was over there... Just imagine all sport being reported by Geoffrey Boycott... it's the 7th circle of hell.

 

[Gnostic]

My comment is based on the little I get to watch om Pay TV. The commentators have appeared more even and more knowledgable than anything we dished up.

As I said tune into Brett Papworth and Co on the ABC every Saturday for the Shute Shield and the best comms in Oz. I wonder is Pappy can write?

 

[wamberal]

Incidentally, and somewhat ironically considering some of the remarks about media coverage, the Shute Shield report in today's SMH is taken straight from the NSWRU media unit.

So much for integrity, independence, whatever else you want to call it. However, much better than nothing.

 

[emuarse]

Incidentally, and somewhat ironically considering some of the remarks about media coverage, the Shute Shield report in today's SMH is taken straight from the NSWRU media unit.

So much for integrity, independence, whatever else you want to call it. However, much better than nothing.

I suspect that the media is hurting from both the general economic downturn in Australia, and particularly from
'on line' competition.
In turn that suggests they are more than happy just to copy feed from recognized outlets, in turn allowing them to minimise on staff.
But it is a two way sword they use as that in turn also means they are driving away fans.
Generally speaking rugby followers come from a higher income earning band, meaning more of a target for advertising, so you'd think the newspapers would be more active than they are on rugby reporting/analysing etc.
My first choice of rugby following each day is 'Rugby Heaven', by the SMH.
And even though it is Waratah-centric, whereas I'm a Reds supporter, I find it has a good wide spread coverage when compared to other sources.
Hopefully Wayne Smith might return to rugby writing when Australian cricket goes into seasonal hibernation, and our international season gets under way.