Roast The state of modern football media...

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Mar 19, 2001
6,661
6,174
Melbourne
AFL Club
North Melbourne
Other Teams
S.A Spurs, Liverpool
Hello,

I thought I'd post a chat I had with a friend today and just open the floor to discussion on the state of the AFL media landscape in 2022.

Chat-with-Nick.jpg

I'd prefer if this didn't end up becoming people arguing about whether Noble deserves to stay or not, I'm not making any point about that and we already have the 'Bye Bye Nobles' thread for that.

I'm interested in the way that discussion and debate take place these days. How much the tail wags the dog.

For example, that thing about the internal communications that was basically a standard market segmentation plan, but got reported like we were about to re-rebrand back to 'Kangaroos' and move to Tasmania. That document was two years old by the way.

This leaked email from Adrian Kinwhatshisman. One email from a coterie member, that gets reported as 'Prestigious coterie group demands complete management spill.' It's just mindless static.

Some of these things might be news (the first one definitely wasn't) but to not call the club for comment? It's just sneaky and opportunistic to me. It's what people do when clicks mean more than anything else.

And hey, that's the ongoing fact of the reality that is the death (or at least sharp defunding) of traditional media and the rise of the 'demosphere' of citizen journalists. I could write an essay on why these things are all actually really GOOD for the world in some ways. But around football, it's a complete circus.

Any thoughts welcome. Have at it. Thanks.
 

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Hello,

I thought I'd post a chat I had with a friend today and just open the floor to discussion on the state of the AFL media landscape in 2022.

View attachment 1440662

I'd prefer if this didn't end up becoming people arguing about whether Noble deserves to stay or not, I'm not making any point about that and we already have the 'Bye Bye Nobles' thread for that.

I'm interested in the way that discussion and debate take place these days. How much the tail wags the dog.

For example, that thing about the internal communications that was basically a standard market segmentation plan, but got reported like we were about to re-rebrand back to 'Kangaroos' and move to Tasmania. That document was two years old by the way.

This leaked email from Adrian Kinwhatshisman. One email from a coterie member, that gets reported as 'Prestigious coterie group demands complete management spill.' It's just mindless static.

Some of these things might be news (the first one definitely wasn't) but to not call the club for comment? It's just sneaky and opportunistic to me. It's what people do when clicks mean more than anything else.

And hey, that's the ongoing fact of the reality that is the death (or at least sharp defunding) of traditional media and the rise of the 'demosphere' of citizen journalists. I could write an essay on why these things are all actually really GOOD for the world in some ways. But around football, it's a complete circus.

Any thoughts welcome. Have at it. Thanks.
It's the conversion of clicks to subscription which is the real KPI for articles so they have to make the headlines sensational enough to entice people to want to pay. Good news stories wont do this but gossip and innuendo will. Football is incredibly emotive and the media play on that, they just don't care if the emotions they are generating are harmful.

The interest in information is so strong. It's why our number 1 poster on here is someone that just posts media articles. Everyone wants to know everything.
 
Hello,

I thought I'd post a chat I had with a friend today and just open the floor to discussion on the state of the AFL media landscape in 2022.

View attachment 1440662

I'd prefer if this didn't end up becoming people arguing about whether Noble deserves to stay or not, I'm not making any point about that and we already have the 'Bye Bye Nobles' thread for that.

I'm interested in the way that discussion and debate take place these days. How much the tail wags the dog.

For example, that thing about the internal communications that was basically a standard market segmentation plan, but got reported like we were about to re-rebrand back to 'Kangaroos' and move to Tasmania. That document was two years old by the way.

This leaked email from Adrian Kinwhatshisman. One email from a coterie member, that gets reported as 'Prestigious coterie group demands complete management spill.' It's just mindless static.

Some of these things might be news (the first one definitely wasn't) but to not call the club for comment? It's just sneaky and opportunistic to me. It's what people do when clicks mean more than anything else.

And hey, that's the ongoing fact of the reality that is the death (or at least sharp defunding) of traditional media and the rise of the 'demosphere' of citizen journalists. I could write an essay on why these things are all actually really GOOD for the world in some ways. But around football, it's a complete circus.

Any thoughts welcome. Have at it. Thanks.
There are 1800 accredited AFL journalists. That's more journos than players and coaches combined. They have to expand any skerrick of a story to give themselves something to write about, and the more headline grabbing the story the greater the capacity to differentiate themselves in a crammed landscape.

I was talking to a mate about this last year. His grandpa was a commentator back in the day and knew everyone, and everyone knew him. Because the world was smaller, there were less players, far less reporters and far less people consuming media like the bloated, info loading pigs we are, players could live their lives relatively freely. This blokes grandpa knew all the foibles of each of the big names, knew which cops and crims drank with which players, knew who got locked up and for what, but there was a unwritten rule that this shit stayed in house. They looked after each other. Now the media are promoting the reporters as stars in their own right, personalities who must be listened to, who have become pigs at the trough of the 24 hour news cycle, separating themselves from the pack by picking up on a conversation someone may have had over a beer with a past player and turning it into a crisis story.

They are a pack of ****ing vultures, a joke to their profession. The AFL should limit their accreditation numbers to 100, but they wont do that, coz clicks. And they love that revenue. Any press is good press to the AFL. Unless it makes HQ look bad. Then they supress it.
 

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What is astonishing is people don’t paint the same brush with the general main steam media (MSM).

Most people despise the AFL media but then follow whatever is said in the MSM like it’s bloody gospel.

99% of the media is fabricated hysteria and lies across the board to push their chosen narratives. It’s hard not to fall for it nowadays though.
 
What is astonishing is people don’t paint the same brush with the general main steam media (MSM).

Most people despise the AFL media but then follow whatever is said in the MSM like it’s bloody gospel.

99% of the media is fabricated hysteria and lies across the board to push their chosen narratives. It’s hard not to fall for it nowadays though.
The reality is they are both very similar now.

They guy who wrote Dune was very prescient. Millenia before Dune happens there is a jihad in human society that wipes out thinking machines. A decade of smart phones and its easy to see why. Human's and media itself weren't that great to begin with either.

Everything is a competition for attention. We evolved to give our attention to threats and resources and probably not in that order. Its easy to see why this has happened the way it has given that we are wired by evolution to seek resources (ie information in this case.)

Yeah anyway ... this is basically what Mav said three posts ago. LOL
 
There are 1800 accredited AFL journalists. That's more journos than players and coaches combined. They have to expand any skerrick of a story to give themselves something to write about, and the more headline grabbing the story the greater the capacity to differentiate themselves in a crammed landscape.

I was talking to a mate about this last year. His grandpa was a commentator back in the day and knew everyone, and everyone knew him. Because the world was smaller, there were less players, far less reporters and far less people consuming media like the bloated, info loading pigs we are, players could live their lives relatively freely. This blokes grandpa knew all the foibles of each of the big names, knew which cops and crims drank with which players, knew who got locked up and for what, but there was a unwritten rule that this shit stayed in house. They looked after each other. Now the media are promoting the reporters as stars in their own right, personalities who must be listened to, who have become pigs at the trough of the 24 hour news cycle, separating themselves from the pack by picking up on a conversation someone may have had over a beer with a past player and turning it into a crisis story.

They are a pack of ****ing vultures, a joke to their profession. The AFL should limit their accreditation numbers to 100, but they wont do that, coz clicks. And they love that revenue. Any press is good press to the AFL. Unless it makes HQ look bad. Then they supress it.

Spot on. And in the context of the above one of the things that annoys me on BigFooty is how people get invested in media awards or AFL awards where the selectors often include (or are clearly heavily influenced by) media.

We know the media are in the clicks/eyeballs game. They generate content - including awards lists - to maximise those, rather than provide any informed viewpoint.

They are also incentivised to:
-‘punch down’ (e.g. get stuck into smaller clubs, where the risk of offending/turning off a volume of supporters is worth it given the reward – versus doing that to, say, a Collingwood – who they want to endear themselves to because they can’t afford that volume of supporters to ‘switch off’).
- Follow the AFL script.
So sure, we might get the odd H Sheezel rising star bone, but they are going to be far more conscious of filling up AA spots with other club players than ours.

It might ‘feel good’ to see a Nth player in a media-driven award from time to time, but ultimately it is all so incredibly compromised we should be ignoring it and we should value things like coaches awards so much more.

Don’t feed the trolls. It’s the only power we have.
 
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Don't hate me, but l listened to SEN this a.m. doing chores / housework.
They were advertising Kane & Bucks show but Bucks is away, so, they had Tom Morris on.
It was literally 3 hours from 6 - 9a.m. of "gossip" Sort of couldn't tear myself away listening. It was terrible.
What did Mrs. Jessop have to say Hoj?
 
Don't hate me, but l listened to SEN this a.m. doing chores / housework.
They were advertising Kane & Bucks show but Bucks is away, so, they had Tom Morris on.
It was literally 3 hours from 6 - 9a.m. of "gossip" Sort of couldn't tear myself away listening. It was terrible.

I'm sure they will play that recording at Guantanamo in years to come.

Is there a more appalling combination of 'presenters'..... not sure how you managed to sit through that. Congratulations, I guess - just wash vigorously tonight.
 

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I think we're all skimming soo much info now and info about other info that "Knoll's" could be seen in a broader context now. No doubt we apply it in differing amounts to help re-enforce our biased list of "good/bad" sources. I wonder how many "hate" attention is driven by "accidental" reporting errors and lack of context. See Hoj.
You should probably know about ferball's law of media accuracy for balance.

"Everything you read, hear or see in the media is bullshit. Even the stuff the media get right is bullshit because its so full of morons that it was trying to tell the story wrong but the people doing it were so incompetent they ****ed that up too."
 
Case in point:


It's a raid! Aaaaah, bloody North Melbourne marauding again!

Oh my god, we're going to gain first access to every indigenous player in the NT! No wonder the other clubs are up in arms!

Especially Gold Coast I assume. Oh, apparently not. Only Geelong, Essendon, Hawthorn, Collingwood and Melbourne. Gold Coast must be happy to lose all their Darwin players in future, as "the Roos are keen to raid the NT completely"?

Or maybe it's not a raid, and it's not "the NT completely"?
 
Does the 1800 include the likes of commentators & alike ?
Not sure about where the 1,800 comes from, but not everyone with a media accreditation is a journalist per se. It includes anyone who works in the media at an AFL venue, which means the camera operators, photographers, sound and lighting people, those people whose job appears to be "carrying cables", etc.

There's even an ancient post on BF from a guy in country NSW who worked in radio and got AFL media accreditation despite his only involvement with AFL being that he occasionally mentioned footy on his show.

 

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