Mass exodus of UK football journalists to American website 'The Atheletic'

[KaiserEFC]

The journalists make most stuff up, get a lot wrong and only tend to write about Liverpool. They’re all pretty pointless really.

 

[ilikecheese]

They've been poaching top notch writers for a while now. Gonna have to make it free before I read it.

 

[dead_soft]

Isn't that the case now and has been for many many years, can't see anything changing

Some people release nonsense, always have. Others produce in depth reporting such as much of The Guardian, The Blizzard, to name a couple of outlets and plenty of individuals

 

[Disgruntledgoat]

Some people release nonsense, always have. Others produce in depth reporting such as much of The Guardian, The Blizzard, to name a couple of outlets and plenty of individuals

Grantland was fantastic

 

[chrismpw]

The thing is, if journalists don’t get paid well, and readers don’t get into the idea of a paid model then you will just get utter wham during transfer windows.
However, interested and engaged journalists writing about some of the major pastimes and interests of the nation is hugely important and shouldn’t be undervalued

I think if you were an editor and stood outside a ground after match days, then over half the oiks coming out could write up a decent match report.

Less risky from the editors point of view would be to read an account on a site such as this and pay Danny and the original writer to lift it.

It isn't rocket science.

 

[Disgruntledgoat]

I think if you were an editor and stood outside a ground after match days, then over half the oiks coming out could write up a decent match report.

Less risky from the editors point of view would be to read an account on a site such as this and pay Danny and the original writer to lift it.

It isn't rocket science.

Can we get the type of oik that can correctly place a comma, please?

 

[chrismpw]

Can we get the type of oik that can correctly place a comma, please?

Other than to enhance clarity, commas mainly exist to start debates amongst those who consider they've had an education.

 

[Disgruntledgoat]

Other than to enhance clarity, commas mainly exist to start debates amongst those who consider they've had an education.

Apologies, but as a professional writer, the "anyone could do it" thing grates. You'd think people would be queuing up for a press card if all there is to it is free football and tapping out a few words afterwards.

 

[Deleted member 28206]

I used to sub to The Times, purely for the breadth of content, until Rod Liddle reminded me what an openly racist bigot he was.

top paper apart from him.

 

[chrismpw]

Apologies, but as a professional writer, the "anyone could do it" thing grates. You'd think people would be queuing up for a press card if all there is to it is free football and tapping out a few words afterwards.

The very best writers make reading a pleasure. Decent research, eloquence of phrase and imaginitive use of vocabulary is a rare art.

I'll be honest and say that they're few and far between in my experience. Most I've read cannot string and sentence together. Maybe it's editorial pressures, maybe it's too much time sitting in coffee bars, maybe they're handed the job by their dad's mate after a second rate public school education.

I understand it grates though. I'm sure I don't know the half if it. When it was a teacher with 30 years under my belt, I'd have to smile nicely at parents of 11 years telling me how I should teach a class to accommodate their little scrote's behavioural deficiencies.

 

[Wizard]

I think if you were an editor and stood outside a ground after match days, then over half the oiks coming out could write up a decent match report.

Less risky from the editors point of view would be to read an account on a site such as this and pay Danny and the original writer to lift it.

It isn't rocket science.

Even if this were true (which it isn't), there's so much more to sports journalism than just match reports.

 

[jackyboy]

Who are the good football journalists exactly?

 

[GrandOldTeam]

So that's where @chicoazul went.

 

[Disgruntledgoat]

I'll be honest and say that they're few and far between in my experience. Most I've read cannot string and sentence together. Maybe it's editorial pressures, maybe it's too much time sitting in coffee bars, maybe they're handed the job by their dad's mate after a second rate public school education.

Match reports are a real pain, to be fair, and not conducive to good writing. Your deadline is usually less than half an hour after FT which, if a team has mounted a late comeback or something, means swift rewrites and no chance to reflect on what you've just seen. You are simply relying on your notes, your memory and your colleagues/competitors who are in the same boat... Which is why I don't write football.

The number of jobs-for-the-boys in sports journalism is pretty limited, as the money is crap and getting worse. Ian McIntosh is a guy I really like (also a blue) who saw the writing on the wall a while back and started looking for new ways to be able to write the stuff he liked. He did the set-pieces website first of all (his series on playing as Everton in Champ Man is hilarious) and now makes podcasts for ESPN.

 

[Mikey_Fitzgerald]

The very best writers make reading a pleasure. Decent research, eloquence of phrase and imaginitive use of vocabulary is a rare art.

I'll be honest and say that they're few and far between in my experience. Most I've read cannot string and sentence together. Maybe it's editorial pressures, maybe it's too much time sitting in coffee bars, maybe they're handed the job by their dad's mate after a second rate public school education.

I understand it grates though. I'm sure I don't know the half if it. When it was a teacher with 30 years under my belt, I'd have to smile nicely at parents of 11 years telling me how I should teach a class to accommodate their little scrote's behavioural deficiencies.

I'm willing to bet you were the sort of teacher who bemoaned the lack of the cane

I'm also interested to see if you considered such things as autism and dyslexia to be "behavioural deficiencies" as well

I think most of us have had a teacher like you, and it probably soured a lot of us on the whole process