Nothing new: Parramatta's Will Hopoate speaks to the media last month. Photo: Brendan Esposito
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It is no surprise that out of 100 NRL players surveyed last week, 65 said they did not trust the media. It was forever thus.
But I wonder if the reasons for their distrust have changed?
Until recently, "the media" was the same 10 or 12 people whom players saw each week. Throw in TV and radio types and it could total around 25 individuals.
These people would interview the players and go away and write stories that would, perhaps, surprise the footballers based on what angle was taken. Because they didn't like the stories, they would therefore not trust the reporters.
But the halcyon days of extreme tabloid beat-ups – "player parks in handicapped spot" – have passed. That was almost a decade ago now. Most new NRL players don't even know media representatives.
The media aren't in the dressing rooms anymore. Reporters don't have the phone numbers of players coming into first grade these days. The two groups interact in very sterile, controlled circumstances such as the club media day or the post-match "mixed zone".
Today's player, I would suggest, distrusts the media because he knows very little about it and because his club has encouraged him to distrust it.
Not only that – the nature of the media today is inherently dangerous, to an extent. There are more people involved in the message getting from the player to the public who never have to deal with the player in their working lives and may have little empathy for them. The sub-editor and the sports editor were the only mysterious conduits in the old days - now we have online editors, social media administrators, TV producers and gawd knows who else.
To give you an example of what I'm talking about, I'll refer to another result of the Rugby League Week players' poll: 33 per cent of respondents – the most popular answer – said that the NRL should take no action against players convicted of assaulting a woman. That is, they believe it should be left to the courts (any column I wrote about that has already been written 50 times).
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I tweeted this over lunch on Monday. Now, I have a few blogs and one of them – rugbyleaguehub.com – would have been perfect for this story. I often chastise myself for tweeting stuff I could post.
But then I got to thinking: what would my headline have been? If I just said "a third of NRL players believe league should take no action over domestic assault", would anyone read the story? All the information is there, no need to read on.
But if I put something like "Shocking answer to female assault question in player poll", aside from it being click-bait, I am taking a position on the news as opposed to just reporting it. I didn't want to do that. I wanted people to make up their own minds on what it means – that's a key part of journalism.
Or at least, it used to be.
The changes to the way the public now consumes news has created a paradigm that makes the media more untrustworthy. Straight-forward information presented concisely – which has been mainstream media's stock in trade for centuries - is very hard to monetise.
So is it any wonder Joe Blow doesn't trust the media in an age where the headline on his interview will be "Joe Blow's Shock Confession: Click Here!" ?
Today's lesson
Leaguelish lessons has been going down well with readers and one usage that annoys a lot of you is "after I seen that, I went and done it".
One, or both of these, often creeps into commentary and many of our coaches aren't above it. Of course, the correct usage is "I saw that" and "I did it".
It sounds particularly bad to outsiders when we stuff these up, I would suggest.
Forum here.
Podcast here.
The story 100 NRL players were asked an important question ... you won't believe what happened next first appeared on Brisbane Times.
http://www.northweststar.com.au/sto...on-you-wont-believe-what-happened-next/?cs=12
Interesting take on things
