An interesting comment by esteemed British
sports columnist Hugh McIlvanney, in his last weekly column for The Sunday
Times.
"Of all the changes that have
transformed my trade since I arrived in Fleet Street half a century ago,
obviously the most revolutionising has been the explosion of technology. But of
no less interest to me is the shrinkage of meaningful access. It is, of course,
particularly conspicuous in football and applies to managers as well as
players.
"At World Cup finals, it was once
natural to walk into the hotel of, say, the great Dutch team of the 1970s and
find such as Johan Cruyff or Johan Neeskens ready to talk frankly and at
length, or to spend half a day with Helmut Schoen when he was in charge of West
Germany, or – with a friend from Rio as facilitator and interpreter – to
penetrate the fortress of the Brazil camp and have one-to-one exchanges with
Pele or Gerson. Now, even for reporters covering England, the organised press
conference appears to be the standard means of communication.
"No doubt the Scottish connection
helped [McIlvanney] to secure educational sessions with Sir Matt Busby, Bill
Shankly, Jock Stein and Sir Alex Ferguson (insomnia helped with the mighty
Stein, who often wanted to talk through most of the night while drinking
endless pots of tea). But that privileged access is firmly associated in my
mind with the atmosphere and ethos of those days, a time when the links between
journalists writing about sport and the subjects of their pieces were more
relaxed and more real.
"It was all a far cry from having to
create a story out of some player's brief babblings on Twitter. Technology has
delivered many a boon to the working reporter but in sport, especially, there
are penalties. The demand for instant information and comment for the internet
in addition to the copy transmitted to the newspaper must eat into the
opportunities for the ferreting around that I always found productive in the
immediate aftermath of an event."
There's more, much more in the wisdom of
such an outstanding columnist but take out football and replace with rugby or
cricket in New Zealand and you understand there is nothing different in what
has been said.
There was a time when mutual respect
established between a sportsman and a writer resulted in some superb
information that could be passed on to readers – something that made readers
the better for having read something about someone who held their interest.
Respect, hard-earned as a result of
diligence to the journalism craft, has been replaced by tolerance from
sportspeople – tolerance only because payment as a professional sportsman
demands that players put themselves in front of the media for the shortest
period of time to answer obvious questions but which in the fullness of time
leave the reader little better off.
The public are being short-changed, even if
many do not realise it. Sportspeople, even though they may not understand it,
are diminishing their own legacy.
The hope has to be that the situation is
not irreversible, and that somewhere in the digital revolution there will be a
chance for genuine interest to replace the click bait. But it could be a long
wait.
