In journalism school, one of the first of the inexact sciences we learn is the prioritisation of news.
There's local, national, international, sports and entertainment news to juggle (with breaking news of Madonna's divorce of course changing everything).
I've spent a lot of time this past year hearing about how the future of the media is in local, highly personalised news. Reams have also been devoted (in media that nobody apparently cares about anymore) to lamenting the lack of international news in mainstream media.
#IranElection however very reassuringly shows that people still care very much about what happens in the rest of the world and it would be myopic of news organisations to assume otherwise.
CNN was asked to pull up its socks and Twitter rescheduled its down time rather than break the flow of information coming in from Iran.
Who says people don't care.
Showing posts with label sports journalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sports journalism. Show all posts
Wednesday, 17 June 2009
Saturday, 18 April 2009
Everyone's a hack's friend
Family and friends of us journos don't have it easy.
Hounded for contacts, asked to drop everything for the sake of quotes/ soundbytes/ 'expert' opinions.
More so for student journalists who just need some camera practice before the real thing. This one's called 'Trains Outside my Window.' Haha.
Of course, sometimes in the process, a star is discovered. Thanks for being a sport Salil!
Hounded for contacts, asked to drop everything for the sake of quotes/ soundbytes/ 'expert' opinions.
More so for student journalists who just need some camera practice before the real thing. This one's called 'Trains Outside my Window.' Haha.
Of course, sometimes in the process, a star is discovered. Thanks for being a sport Salil!
Wednesday, 18 March 2009
Some wisecrack about going to the dogs
So there was this proposed visit to Wimbledon stadium to watch greyhound racing. More school assignments.
I knew nothing of this alleged sport I was going to watch. Except that there would be dogs running around a track.
As an introduction, our tutor gave us the book he wrote about his short and unfortunate stint as a race dog owner. All I knew at the end of it was that I still couldn't understand betting odds.
Ignoring the ethical ambiguity of what I was indirectly supporting, I trekked to the tracks at Wimbledon.
The place didn't smell of dog, but it smelled of beer and burgers. And high spirits.
Old men in tweed, elderly couples, some spiffy suits and loosened ties, and even a bunch of German school children were at the races, clutching race sheets and counting their bills. The screens continually brought up the odds.
The really serious punters, the ones who said they'd been coming here every week for over 40 years, were those that skipped the screens and instead peered at bookies through binoculars, while making illegible notes on their race sheets.
Soon, the first set of dogs are paraded.
Nunhead Jack stops to sniff a post.
(One should expect no less from a dog. "Come on boy!")
With two minutes to go for the race, the last bets are placed.
The gates open and they're off.
In less than two minutes, fortunes were made and lost. Me, I won the princly sum of 25p.
But at the end of the night, I quit both gambling and dog-racing. Quit when I was winning.
The story I wrote for University is up on our website mindZgap.
I knew nothing of this alleged sport I was going to watch. Except that there would be dogs running around a track.
As an introduction, our tutor gave us the book he wrote about his short and unfortunate stint as a race dog owner. All I knew at the end of it was that I still couldn't understand betting odds.
Ignoring the ethical ambiguity of what I was indirectly supporting, I trekked to the tracks at Wimbledon.
The place didn't smell of dog, but it smelled of beer and burgers. And high spirits.
Old men in tweed, elderly couples, some spiffy suits and loosened ties, and even a bunch of German school children were at the races, clutching race sheets and counting their bills. The screens continually brought up the odds.
The really serious punters, the ones who said they'd been coming here every week for over 40 years, were those that skipped the screens and instead peered at bookies through binoculars, while making illegible notes on their race sheets.
Soon, the first set of dogs are paraded.
Nunhead Jack stops to sniff a post.
(One should expect no less from a dog. "Come on boy!")
With two minutes to go for the race, the last bets are placed.
The gates open and they're off.
In less than two minutes, fortunes were made and lost. Me, I won the princly sum of 25p.
But at the end of the night, I quit both gambling and dog-racing. Quit when I was winning.
The story I wrote for University is up on our website mindZgap.
Friday, 13 March 2009
All work all play
The sports journalist has the best job in the world after the Swiss chocolate taster.
QPR were playing Sheffield United in London and my first assignment as fancy-shmacy sports hack was to cover this. (Read my report here.) Work at a football match was definitely in itself the benefit of a lifetime of accumulated good karma. But it only got better.
I was at a Championship game having paid 22 quid less than the cheapest ticket, with the added invitation to "enjoy the Cipriani's catering." (I did. Whoever Cipriani is.) My vantage viewing point was as good as it could get in the stadium, letting me keep an eye on the TV screen showing matches I was missing while I was at Work as well.
I was offered a press sweatshirt to keep me warm and allow me to turn my full concentration to the game. The bright blue thing was arguably fashioned for a strapping ex rugby player turned sports columnist, but it was cosy nonetheless.
Us sports types don't hang around with the common folks. We with our ubiquitous press passes and memorised stats reels collect in the press rooms to write match reports of a game where the most interesting thing to happen was that I went to watch.
Of course there were challenges. Like concentrating on hastily improvised shorthand while a rather easy-on-the-eye Portugese coach was talking at the post match press meet. And understanding that it might not be highly professional to ask the players to sign my press pack, however star struck I may be.
I could get used to such pampering. Of course, I'll be working for my supper.
Like when I visit the dog-racing track next week. On Work.
QPR were playing Sheffield United in London and my first assignment as fancy-shmacy sports hack was to cover this. (Read my report here.) Work at a football match was definitely in itself the benefit of a lifetime of accumulated good karma. But it only got better.
I was at a Championship game having paid 22 quid less than the cheapest ticket, with the added invitation to "enjoy the Cipriani's catering." (I did. Whoever Cipriani is.) My vantage viewing point was as good as it could get in the stadium, letting me keep an eye on the TV screen showing matches I was missing while I was at Work as well.
I was offered a press sweatshirt to keep me warm and allow me to turn my full concentration to the game. The bright blue thing was arguably fashioned for a strapping ex rugby player turned sports columnist, but it was cosy nonetheless.
Us sports types don't hang around with the common folks. We with our ubiquitous press passes and memorised stats reels collect in the press rooms to write match reports of a game where the most interesting thing to happen was that I went to watch.
Of course there were challenges. Like concentrating on hastily improvised shorthand while a rather easy-on-the-eye Portugese coach was talking at the post match press meet. And understanding that it might not be highly professional to ask the players to sign my press pack, however star struck I may be.
I could get used to such pampering. Of course, I'll be working for my supper.
Like when I visit the dog-racing track next week. On Work.
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