Saturday, June 16, 2012

Broken News

In the hotel I'm staying in here in Belfast there are free copies of the Independent. I picked one up on my way down to breakfast. I skipped straight to the Sport section as I wanted to read about last night's England game.

I was slightly surprised to see that the cover story for the Sport section  wasn't England's dramatic 3-2 victory over Sweden but the fact that rain had delayed the France-Ukraine tie from earlier the same day.

The England game doesn't even feature in the sidebar on the cover. Oh well, I thought, The Independent can be deliberately contrary at times. Maybe this is the Northern Irish edition and they're treating the England game as a minor story out of devilment.
But no. There's no mention of the game inside at all. There's an article about the five best goals scored so far and it doesn't mention Welbeck's brilliantly improvised winning goal. Not even in passing.

It doesn't take long to figure out that the paper was printed before the England game had taken place. I can't quite imagine how anyone thought the sports section of a national newspaper could make sense without the biggest sports story of the day. Wouldn't it be better to have late newspapers than early newspapers without the news?

Here's their coverage of France's 2-0 victory over Ukraine.
Except they clearly printed it before the first goal had gone in:
... and before most of the other details were known...
I bet dddddd's Mum is very proud.

I imagine later editions will be corrected... but what is the point of printing an early edition when it is this scant on detail? Who is buying it, when? And if it's just for the free copies that they distribute in hotels and airports and the like... doesn't it work out as a bad advert for their product?

Is this a problem in general with these Euros? Are other newspapers missing the same details or is it just The Independent?

I know newspapers lose out to the internet when it comes to today's news... to now. But when they lose out to yesterday's news as well...

15 comments:

Lindsay said...

I see the match was X-rated too! :-O

Jony said...

You see there is a big world outside of England contrary to what a lot of English and the BBC think. Not every piece of news needs to refer to the English football team. In my opinion a good thunderstorm comes before any England game, but that's another story.

Anonymous said...

Jony that was an unnecessary comment to a very valid article. This isn't really about the lack of England coverage, its about the poor guy who has been fired for printing this unfinished early edition.... hint, you sir are a muppets butler.

Rob said...

Jony, you should really read the entire post before commenting.

Anonymous said...

I hear ths kind of bilge so often being an Englishman living in Wales. Nice to see Jony jumping to completely the wrong conclusion. Typical of this kind of unobjective, nationalist reflex. However, Jony's stupidity is not what prompted my post. "You sir are a muppets butler" is utter genius, which I shall be overtly plagiarising from now on. :-)

Ross said...

So, the sports section is no more fact-based than the rest of the (or any) paper. Why are we surprised at this spreading decay ?

Anonymous said...

I agree with Jony. Well said Sir!

Dave Gorman said...

I think Jony - and Anonymous - have rather missed the point. Or not read the post. It doesn't matter whether or not you (or I) think the England game is important... it's not what the blog post is about.

Jony said...

Dear 'typical of this kind of unobjective, nationalist reflex,

It's great to see a man argue about someone jumping to the wrong conclusion by jumping to the wrong conclusion himself, shows great thinking on their behalf. Unfortunately you know nothing about my political views and frankly couldn't be more wrong.

If I was an Englishman living in a different country and came across this sort of thing all the time, as you refer to in your post, it would make me take a long hard look in the mirror and then I might realise that the rest of the world may have a point.

I guess the only thing left to say is "Would you like your pot black with that kettle sir?"

- lots of love,
he muppets butler

Jony said...

I didn't miss the point Dave, I merely raised a point.

tevhudson said...

And France and Ukraine could have drawn if the score had been different. I'm not missing the point I'm merely raising a point.
Actually back on topic I agree that this greatly dilutes their brand abduction they would be much better off running a later edition and making a big deal off the fact that they have held off to bring you 'all the coverage'.

tevhudson said...

I'm not sure how the word abduction got in there. maybe i should have held off for a later edition.

Rob said...

I have no idea why newspapers put their content on the web for free. They charge you for out of date content in a paper format, but give you up to date, easily navigable, accessible-from-your-bedroom content for free. Maniacs.

Dave Gorman said...

@Jony: yes... but making a point that doesn't address anything in the blog on which you've decided to comment does give the impression that you've, y'know... missed the point.

Rjs said...

I've seen the London Metro do the same (Man U v Crystal Palace last Dec).

They don't openly say "still being played at time of going to print", instead they write something really vague about the game and then journalistically walk off whistling.