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

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I suppose a way to view this is that it will provide more opportunities for people, although an alternative will be that it will just pile the pressure on the people who stay behind

The article that was linked said that Sports Editors are, for the first time in years, going to the board asking to hire more people and getting approval. Nobody wants to be left behind in their coverage of the Premier League as that's one of the reasons people still read newspapers. It could (not saying it will) really open up a whole new generation of sportswriters or it could see us all getting our football writing from bloggers.
 
That would kind of confirm their lack of quality writing...

All their initial gets came from local papers - James Pearce, Phil Hay etc - not known for long-form but Twitter Gods when it comes to ITK info for Liverpool and Leeds.

If they try and hide what they'd usually tweet behind a paywall, about ten lads will pay just to tweet it out themselves and grow Twitter accounts.
 
I actually quite like Oliver Holt as well

Ronay is an odd one. Some weeks I like him and others I don't. He's a bit too pro Liverpool for my personal tastes, although his writing itself is decent

I like Mcintosh & Taylor, don't think he takes himself too seriously.

A lot easier to think of ones that do my head in;

Barry Glendenning
Sachin Nakrani
Martin Samuel

Most from the echo etc.
 
Who are the good football journalists exactly?
I was always impressed by David Conn as well with his coverage of lower and non-league club management and financial scandals.

Going on to the wider subject of journalism and what happens in the future, it's a pretty dire picture overall. In that sense, I can't really fault the lads on the Echo as it is not their fault that the paper is a badly-coded ad-ridden collection of crude click magnets.

And that really is the problem. People are consuming information online. That means that traffic is what matters as only with traffic do you have an audience who click on ads (or pay your subscription). The reason why you see clickbait is because extremes polarise. And that's also why on a local team basis you tend to see more RS stories and even a perceived anti-Everton bias.

If I wrote a story saying "Klopp throws shade at Everton's lack of transfers" it would get far more engagement (in terms of comments, shares, quotes and reposts) than if I wrote "Everton's summer of stealth continues" (as Paul Wilson commendably did in the Guardian today). I would get engaged Liverpool fans from around the world plus a bunch of enraged EFC fans bemoaning the RS bias in the media. That's why the DailyHate does what it does in its wall of shame.

And then, if I knew what I was doing (which most of the media don't), I would be using various social media avenues to amplify that story and make it even easier to share.

The only way I can see it working out for journalists, especially those who like long-form stuff which does take research, knowledge and work, is if you get some 'name' journalists that people do read a paper for to co-operate on a profit-sharing online project. But that is as unlikely as @davek campaigning for Boris Johnson to replace Bill Kenwright.
 
I was always impressed by David Conn as well with his coverage of lower and non-league club management and financial scandals.



The only way I can see it working out for journalists, especially those who like long-form stuff which does take research, knowledge and work, is if you get some 'name' journalists that people do read a paper for to co-operate on a profit-sharing online project. But that is as unlikely as @davek campaigning for Boris Johnson to replace Bill Kenwright.

Great shout on Conn. Hell of a writer.

There's some people making some good strides in new business models for long form. I did a piece for a cycling magazine over here that only does long form but also only comes out 4 times a year, costs €10 a throw and is a really nicely printed thing. They started a football one on the same lines but came to realise that the market for long-form cerebral jouranlism on historical football stories is somewhat limited.

Grantland was great while it lasted but once ESPN pulled the plug it couldn't sustain itself.
 
I like Mcintosh & Taylor, don't think he takes himself too seriously.

A lot easier to think of ones that do my head in;

Barry Glendenning
Sachin Nakrani
Martin Samuel

Most from the echo etc.

Glendenning isn't bad but he tries too hard to be funny in my opinion, and sometimes it feels forced

It gives you an appreciation for people like Charlie Brooker and Scott Keith, who can make that sort of snarky writing come across as natural. Glendenning's writing has the feel of a man whose workshopping his lines as opposed to just coming to them organically
 
Glendenning isn't bad but he tries too hard to be funny in my opinion, and sometimes it feels forced

It gives you an appreciation for people like Charlie Brooker and Scott Keith, who can make that sort of snarky writing come across as natural. Glendenning's writing has the feel of a man whose workshopping his lines as opposed to just coming to them organically

You've reminded me that Harry Pearson was another one I used to like, even if he did look like Billy Bragg.

Outside of football, Gideon Haigh is basically my idol.
 
Related to this topic, I just read two stories on the Guardian website. The first was a longer piece about Haller signing for West Ham sourced from WhoScored and the second was on this very subject talking about old-school vs social media related to promotion and content in football, again sourced externally (from Nutmeg). The external websites will be getting a decent amount of traffic from those article retreads.

Worth a read if anyone's interested in that kind of stuff:
It’s 4.50pm on a cold, blustery Saturday in March and I am at the in-laws’ house on the south coast of England. Cups of tea have been distributed, rugby is on the TV and Scotland are trundling to another defeat. Amid sympathetic murmurings, I glance at Twitter for the score that matters. Dumbarton have beaten Montrose away and my mood is saved for the evening.

My attention, however, is drawn to the multitude of likes and shares appearing on a tweet from the official Berwick Rangers account: “Ugly scenes in the dugout as Cowdenbeath’s manager has just told [Berwick manager] Johnny Harvey to ‘take his face for a sh*te’ #BRFC.”

What Berwick Rangers going viral tells football clubs about social media
 
I like Mcintosh & Taylor, don't think he takes himself too seriously.

A lot easier to think of ones that do my head in;

Barry Glendenning
Sachin Nakrani
Martin Samuel

Most from the echo etc.
Glendenning is a monumental bulb. I've unfortunately spent a reasonable amount of time in his company and he's a nasty, spiteful, drunk. Rushden is actually quite a decent bloke, I used to play for the same amateur side as him in London, he's not a great journalist but he loves his football and would do you a good turn rather than a bad one.
 
To be fair



So yes, Chris did want the cane back, so I was right on that one

I'll concede the behaviour part though. Let's just say the school I went to had a certain attitude to people with those sorts of conditions and the language used was eerily similar to what Chris was using
The cane was banned 2 years before I started teaching. Very, very few teachers, even those who never used it, thought it was a good idea. It was the idiot Kenneth Baker's idea and it passed in parliament by 1 vote. There were several mps caught in traffic who missed the vote who were pro-caning. Part of Thatcher's destruction of society legacy.

I'm curious though, what terms I've used that have so irritated you.
 
The cane was banned 2 years before I started teaching. Very, very few teachers, even those who never used it, thought it was a good idea. It was the idiot Kenneth Baker's idea and it passed in parliament by 1 vote. There were several mps caught in traffic who missed the vote who were pro-caning. Part of Thatcher's destruction of society legacy.

I'm curious though, what terms I've used that have so irritated you.

Let's just say that parents who had kids with the conditions mentioned received very little sympathy from some of the teachers, with them taking a "parents aren't going to tell me how to run my class" attitude, despite the parents having legitimate things they needed to get across with the teacher that would actually help their children

And indeed, I vividly remember an exchange where one teacher was barking in a parents face that their child was just badly behaved, when really he just had autism and, with a bit of help, he ended up doing much better the following year with a more sympathetic teacher who was actually willing to listen to the parents and try to help the lad out. So the term "behavioural deficiencies" took me back somewhat and reminded me of that unsympathetic tit. All of us who knew the kid understood that he wasn't actually a bad lad, so how that blinkered fool couldn't see it is beyond me. And amazingly, he didn't even get properly reprimanded for it, and I'm only in my 30's so it's not like it was the "bad old days" either. He was not surprisingly a pro caner, and he more than once seemed wistful about it. Thankfully he retired a couple of years after that. He wasn't missed

Sorry, but you reminded me of him with the things you were saying
 
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