I came across this sorry exchange of emails between a freelancer and a national sports editor:
From: xxxx
Sent: 01 July 2014 09:56
To: xxx
Subject: News story for you?
At BOA annual meeting yesterday, the UK Anti-Doping Agency announced that it didn’t have enough cash to pay for all the drug testing it would like to conduct. Would the sports governing bodies like to chip in?
Two angles to this story: 1, sports governing bodies contributing financially to anti-doping would break absolutely the arms-length, independent status that UKAD is supposed to have; and 2, with an annual budget of £7m of government dosh, UKAD’s hardly hard-up, and some sports CEOs are suggesting that the agency has not been managing its resources properly.
Would you be interested?
From: xxx
Sent: Tuesday, July 01, 2014 10:13 AM
To: xxx
Subject: RE: News story for you?
Sorry we are impossibly squeezed at the moment…no real room for anything other than World Cup and Wimbledon…will get back to you on your other ideas, though
I’ve excised the sports editor’s name, because in fact it hardly matters. At least he responded promptly.
No space?
No budget?
Definitely no news.
Sports desks (specifically; are news desks so hidebound?) so rarely venture off-diary, it is little wonder that real “sports news” doesn’t get covered.
If there is any “Olympic legacy”, it certainly hasn’t been felt in sports journalism.
There was a fashion, not so long ago, for newspapers to have “sports news correspondents”, people who did all sorts of things, from the latest idiotic announcements from the Football Aassociation, to drug testing, bids for major championships and general London Olympic news. Across the Mail, Express, Evening Standard, the “broadsheets”and BBC London, I reckon that nine staff sports journalists have been moved on from this very specialist beat, mostly retired or made redundant, and none have been replaced, in less than two years.
Is that because there isn’t any sports news any more?
From: xxxx
Sent: 01 July 2014 09:56
To: xxx
Subject: News story for you?
At BOA annual meeting yesterday, the UK Anti-Doping Agency announced that it didn’t have enough cash to pay for all the drug testing it would like to conduct. Would the sports governing bodies like to chip in?
Two angles to this story: 1, sports governing bodies contributing financially to anti-doping would break absolutely the arms-length, independent status that UKAD is supposed to have; and 2, with an annual budget of £7m of government dosh, UKAD’s hardly hard-up, and some sports CEOs are suggesting that the agency has not been managing its resources properly.
Would you be interested?
From: xxx
Sent: Tuesday, July 01, 2014 10:13 AM
To: xxx
Subject: RE: News story for you?
Sorry we are impossibly squeezed at the moment…no real room for anything other than World Cup and Wimbledon…will get back to you on your other ideas, though
I’ve excised the sports editor’s name, because in fact it hardly matters. At least he responded promptly.
No space?
No budget?
Definitely no news.
Sports desks (specifically; are news desks so hidebound?) so rarely venture off-diary, it is little wonder that real “sports news” doesn’t get covered.
If there is any “Olympic legacy”, it certainly hasn’t been felt in sports journalism.
There was a fashion, not so long ago, for newspapers to have “sports news correspondents”, people who did all sorts of things, from the latest idiotic announcements from the Football Aassociation, to drug testing, bids for major championships and general London Olympic news. Across the Mail, Express, Evening Standard, the “broadsheets”and BBC London, I reckon that nine staff sports journalists have been moved on from this very specialist beat, mostly retired or made redundant, and none have been replaced, in less than two years.
Is that because there isn’t any sports news any more?
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