The state of AFL media in 2023 (by one of them!)

[TheExtractorFactor]

Eco the sentiments re Finey. Not only was the final siren a huge loss, but his evening program in general as well as being on footyology with Rohan. I tried to keep listening with Robert Shaw, whom I like, but it just wasn't the same - Finey is irreplaceable unfortunately. His disappearance from the landscape has had a direct impact on my enjoyment and engagement with the game as a whole as hyperbolic as that may sound.

 

[revo333]

This is a particularly perceptive and well-articulated response, IAMDASH, and I pretty much agree with every word. The football public is a lot more intelligent and discerning than I think a lot of people running media organisations these days realise. But it's easier and just as, if not more profitable, to take the low road. And, to be frank, I don't think nearly as many people involved now (even the ex-player types) have nearly the same passion for the game previous generations did. You'd need that if you were genuinely interested in investing in quality. They just don't care that much, the game itself is simply a means to an end.

Totally agree.

They tell us they are concerned about coaches and players mental health and then say Tom Morris was just doing his job by being the first to break the Hardwick story.

 

[Mitchell Madness]

My problem with the media is that it exists in its own echo chamber.
They come up with a theory, then they quote it, and before you know it that theory is "the truth" despite plenty of evidence that says otherwise.

Then you've got the masses of sheep that consume the media and are incapable of forming their own opinion, which in turn just ruins the game because they become part of the echo

 

[MauroFogheri]

Totally agree.

They tell us they are concerned about coaches and players mental health and then say Tom Morris was just doing his job by being the first to break the Hardwick story.

So if Morris finds out about Hardwick at 6pm Monday, he - and fellow Journo's - should have sat on it, smoked a bong and just waited for the Richmond press release then press conference? Be passive. If journalism is anything , it is jamming the system...Morris this week displayed the very essence of journalism, objective markers...shorn of earnest-ness

 

[revo333]

So if Morris finds out about Hardwick at 6pm Monday, he - and fellow Journo's - should have sat on it, smoked a bong and just waited for the Richmond press release then press conference? Be passive. If journalism is anything , it is jamming the system...Morris this week displayed the very essence of journalism, objective markers...shorn of earnest-ness

My point was, don't have sympathy for peoples mental health and then 'get off' on breaking stories that should be kept private.

 

[Hawker_85]

Hi BigFooty,

As some people might have seen, I post the Footyology Podcast on BigFooty each week and occasionally respond to the odd comment. I certainly read BigFooty a bit and for the most part enjoy the usually pretty well-informed discussion.

Anyway, like a lot of you, I've also at times in recent years been driven to despair by coverage of the game via both electronic and written media. And to that end, I've written a piece originally for ESPN and reposted on the Footyology website about it all. Thought given the amount of interest in this "Fourth Estate" board I might as well post it here for people's perusal.

You may agree, disagree, anyway, see what you think.

Cheers,
Rohan

Great article Rohan. Threw into sharp relief for me what has actually been lost over the past few decades, seems I'm the proverbial frog in the boiling pot. Journalistic standards on the whole seem to have been on a steady downward trend for a long time, seeming to cater for the lowest common denominator with a three second attention span, and for the life of me I can't understand why. There's ample evidence out there that there is a big desire to hear detailed analysis of complex topics, conducted over the span of hours, not seconds. Look at the skyrocketing popularity of the long form discussion podcast vs mainstream media news broadcasts. Will definitely look into the ESPN coverage mentioned, thank you for being a voice of reason and keep up the good work.

 

[MauroFogheri]

There's ample evidence out there that there is a big desire to hear detailed analysis of complex topics, conducted over the span of hours

I reckon the intellectualisation of football is a newer phenomenon than a supposed drop in attention spans.

 

[Chalky White]

It seems to me it's a very crowded space and that your only chance of becoming successful is having a shock jock style or become the complete newsbreaker type.

Because newspapers now are a dying artform, the opinion type journalists Sheahan, Caro won't be as common. We definitely are becoming Americanized, I think Hutchy who is such a huge player in the media market has shown his love for all things American.
It's not just us though, if you look at EPL soccer for example, the reporting and journalism of that is similar to how we are heading in AFL.

Cricket is similar, sure you have Crash Craddock and a couple of older type journos but it's becoming far more tv and radio orientated than print.

It unfortunately seems to be a road we are heading down. The print journalist such as yourself will soon become a thing of the past. Which is a shame.

 

[Partridge]

Great article Rohan. Threw into sharp relief for me what has actually been lost over the past few decades, seems I'm the proverbial frog in the boiling pot. Journalistic standards on the whole seem to have been on a steady downward trend for a long time, seeming to cater for the lowest common denominator with a three second attention span, and for the life of me I can't understand why. There's ample evidence out there that there is a big desire to hear detailed analysis of complex topics, conducted over the span of hours, not seconds. Look at the skyrocketing popularity of the long form discussion podcast vs mainstream media news broadcasts. Will definitely look into the ESPN coverage mentioned, thank you for being a voice of reason and keep up the good work.

Exactly. The canaries are all over the coalmine too.

Watch any kind of mindnumbing "news" program now on commerical television. I can almost guarantee you the captions running along the bottom will have the most basic spelling errors in them. The other day I saw "descent" spelled as "decent". Why isn't this checked?

Back to footy, the single most frustrating, depressing, and infuriating thing to me about footy media now is - by far - commentary of games. It's so universally putrid now I don't think it's ever going to recover. You have ex-players (and I can think of two immediately in Russell and Taylor) who are three decades out of the game - obsessed with creating catchphrases, yelling when they don't need to (which is always), talking about themselves, anything except letting the game going on speak for itself. You have non-players who drool over the ex-players so much even Bruce McAvaney would cringe. You have an epidemic of first names and nicknames being used constantly now. You have commentators that blatantly cheer and barrack for one team. You have instant judgement, trial, and sentencing for any physical contact. Plus of course universal praise for every single umpiring decision no matter how bad. And to top all that off, the most superficial, lazy, and shallow analysis. Which frequently consists of fawning over one star player even though their best footy was years ago (Luke "this is just the type of moment where you can see Chris Judd / Dustin Martin / Paddy Dangerfield / Gary Ablett etc. etc. " Darcy is the absolute king of this).

The guys in WA are literally the only ones I can stomach now. Papalia has this bizarre notion of actually just calling the game (I fear for this future), and Pavlich isn't too bad either. I'm really struggling to think of anyone else who's even competent.

Appreciate your interest here Rohan, and terrific article, I just wish I could be more positive about the overall direction.

 

[Dogs Rule]

So if Morris finds out about Hardwick at 6pm Monday, he - and fellow Journo's - should have sat on it, smoked a bong and just waited for the Richmond press release then press conference? Be passive. If journalism is anything , it is jamming the system...Morris this week displayed the very essence of journalism, objective markers...shorn of earnest-ness

The point is the media goes on about respecting mental health especially when it's one of their own, but when it's a coach, a player, or whoever, if there's a story there they'll run with it, they don't give a s***. So basically they're a bunch of hypocrites.

 

[JHCAT23]

I wonder if ESPN will one day invest more heavily in the Australian sports market. Have a digital radio footprint, commentate games. Buy a game or 2 and run it on the ESPN channel rather than foxfooty

 

[Mkcaptain]

I disagree with the takes about Tom Morris here. A coach stepping down is absolutely news that journalists should be breaking (presuming its 100% confirmed as true like it was on Monday night). I'm also not sure if we should conflate burnout with other mental health issues which would need more sensitivity in the reporting.

 

[Hawker_85]

The guys in WA are literally the only ones I can stomach now. Papalia has this bizarre notion of actually just calling the game (I fear for this future), and Pavlich isn't too bad either. I'm really struggling to think of anyone else who's even competent.

I may be somewhat biased but the best ex-player commentator as far as I'm concerned is Dunstall. Has value adding insight and has the decency to leave the attempts at humour to when he's on Bounce. Actually Buckley isn't too bad either now I stop and think about it.

 

[Partridge]

I may be somewhat biased but the best ex-player commentator as far as I'm concerned is Dunstall. Has value adding insight and has the decency to leave the attempts at humour to when he's on Bounce. Actually Buckley isn't too bad either now I stop and think about it.

Yeah I reckon Buckley is pretty decent as well.

 

[revo333]

I disagree with the takes about Tom Morris here. A coach stepping down is absolutely news that journalists should be breaking (presuming its 100% confirmed as true like it was on Monday night). I'm also not sure if we should conflate burnout with other mental health issues which would need more sensitivity in the reporting.

I agree that Morris had a right to break the story and I wasn't connecting it to mental health side, the point is the media are hypocrites in regards to caring about coaches and players mental health.

 

[revo333]

I may be somewhat biased but the best ex-player commentator as far as I'm concerned is Dunstall. Has value adding insight and has the decency to leave the attempts at humour to when he's on Bounce. Actually Buckley isn't too bad either now I stop and think about it.

Dunstall is great, Brereton on the other hand..

 

[beez]

It seems to me it's a very crowded space and that your only chance of becoming successful is having a shock jock style or become the complete newsbreaker type.

Because newspapers now are a dying artform, the opinion type journalists Sheahan, Caro won't be as common. We definitely are becoming Americanized, I think Hutchy who is such a huge player in the media market has shown his love for all things American.
It's not just us though, if you look at EPL soccer for example, the reporting and journalism of that is similar to how we are heading in AFL.

Cricket is similar, sure you have Crash Craddock and a couple of older type journos but it's becoming far more tv and radio orientated than print.

It unfortunately seems to be a road we are heading down. The print journalist such as yourself will soon become a thing of the past. Which is a shame.

Something something irony.

 

[Chalky White]

Something something irony.

autospell.....amazing

 

[MC Extra Dollop]

Really appreciate your contributions which truly help confirm or correct my suspicions of how the industry works. Your honesty and transparency is also commendable: as a recognisable name in the industry, it'd be easy to hide behind an alias: I'm sure others do.

There's a couple of factors along with many of those discussed that I think have contributed to the decline in quality of AFL (and sports) journalism.

My mind goes back to Sam Newman with the growth of the first: The 'Who's playing?' syndrome. That's where the commentator believes that they are the show and that actual research has become beneath them. I don't think I should ever really feel as though I'm more knowledgeable about an aspect of the game than someone getting paid to be knowledgeable about the game - especially now that I watch far less footy than I did 19 years ago - but I often do.

The second part is associated with the 24 hour cycle, social media and people's desire for fame: I think a lot of the next generation of the football media (not all of them) have very little interest in producing insightful, thought-provoking features. That's not going to make them famous. They want to be news breakers, they want to have a regular spot on Fox Footy, they want to do the equivalent of a 'gotcha' question at a press conference. They don't really want to report a story; they want to be the story.

The third follows on from the above content saturation and it's where the Cornes example comes in. It's Skip Bayless/Stephen A Smith syndrome. One of these AFL commentators could say:

"Tim Taranto

14

Tim Taranto

Age

26

Ht

188cm

Wt

87kg

Pos.

Mid

Career

Season

Last 5

D

22.3

5star

K

12.8

5star

HB

9.5

5star

M

3.6

4star

T

5.6

5star

CL

4.1

5star

D

17.0

4star

K

12.0

5star

HB

5.0

3star

M

1.5

2star

T

3.0

4star

CL

5.5

5star

D

15.6

4star

K

7.6

3star

HB

8.0

5star

M

1.8

2star

T

4.0

5star

CL

2.2

4star

's played quite well this year for the Tigers, but he's on the hook for the rest of the decade and will be taking a significant chunk of the salary cap and I don't think he's at the AA level you'd expect for that commitment."

I'd argue that's probably closer to what Cornes thinks. He's even admitted he plays up the antagonist/shock jock angle because that's what rates. So he says Taranto's not in the top 150 players in the league even though I bet he doesn't really believe it. People feel like they need to come up with these absurd exaggerations, because if they don't, they think no-one will take notice. And then the Daisy Thomas's hit back and they hit back at Daisy and there's your week's worth of stories filed.

 

[killtaker1993]

Thanks. Hey, just curious, is your handle by any chance a reference to Fugazi's 1993 album 'In On The Killtaker'? I've always liked them.

Damn straight it is, my favourite album of theirs. They are sorely missed!

I loved your question to Koch yesterday about Ben Roberts-Smith on 3AW, I don't know why that caller rang in at the end to have a go at you

 

[MauroFogheri]

"Tim Taranto's played quite well this year for the Tigers, but he's on the hook for the rest of the decade and will be taking a significant chunk of the salary cap and I don't think he's at the AA level you'd expect for that commitment."

I'd argue that's probably closer to what Cornes thinks. He's even admitted he plays up the antagonist/shock jock angle because that's what rates. So he says Taranto's not in the top 150 players in the league even though I bet he doesn't really believe it.

But your first statement would be merely saying what everybody knows...the 150 remark is not so far-fetched and stimulates discussion.

You refer to the decline of journalism and equate it with the "desire to be newsbreakers" . Well you must have a different definition of journalism than I do...to me, long-form, self-important feature writing is a wank

 

[busdriver12]

A little late to the buffet, but stumbled across this post earlier this week and concur 100%. Well written and thought out

As others have said here, it's not just the "journalism" (and I use that term loosely) but the commentary as well. Both Fox and Ch 7 are barely listenable and I much prefer to to listen to the ABC's radio commentary but the audio is (deliberately?) delayed so it is unusable to mute the TV and listen to the radio. There is much I could say, but to suffice to say may well review my Foxtel subscription at the end of the season.

Have been poring over your Footyology web site and ESPN's too and there's some good stuff there, so there's hope for a mug like me who doesn't have a great deal of spare time. It's come down to "style vs substance" or "quality vs quantity" in how our footy news is dished up.

 

[Tandy]

The fact that journos report on what other journos opinions are is just lazy to me.

 

[peternorth]

I like this thread!

 

[jefffff34]

The fact that journos report on what other journos opinions are is just lazy to me.

Quoting from random peoples podcasts is even lazier.