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Newspaper axes staff-written football reports over lack of web hits

BARNET_BEE_400x400A regional publisher has stopped sending a staff reporter to cover a football club’s matches because the number of web hits don’t justify the work involved in covering games.

Tom Bodell, who works for Newsquest North London, will no longer provide on the whistle Barnet FC match reports or in-game tweets for the Barnet Times website, or match reports in the print edition.

The announcement was made in a series of posts from Newsquest’s @Barnet_Bee Twitter account, which provides news related to the club, which plays in the fourth tier of English football.

The account cited an example of Tom being sent to cover an away match in Carlisle in September, representing a 16 hour working day, for “a couple of hundred hits”.

The series of tweets announcing the change in coverage

The series of tweets announcing the change in coverage

Match reports for the paper will instead be outsourced to a freelance journalist, but on the whistle match reports will no longer be uploaded to the website.

In future, Tom will be assigned to covering East London club Leyton Orient, who play in the same division as Barnet but have a larger fan-base, and Watford FC’s Premier League games for various titles across the division.

However, it is understood he will continue to cover Barnet FC news on weekdays and interview manager Martin Allen once a week for the Times.

The company’s announcement on Twitter reads: “The job will be outsourced so there will still be reports on matchdays. In short, Barnet FC won’t be covered as forensically as they have in recent years & this goes for in-game tweets too.

“This is a tough decision which nobody wanted to take but the bottom line is the hits v the hours put in doesn’t tally.

“Carlisle away was a 16 hour day for a couple of hundred hits, at best. Martin Allen’s thoughts and news always do better.”

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  • December 21, 2015 at 8:35 am
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    This item dovetails with the Trinity Mirror story a few weeks ago where its reporters will be assessed on web hits – i.e. numbers rather than journalistic quality – a move to working in a sales environment. I wonder how many more will go down this route in 2016. And are publishers right to do it? Cue one of those fascinating HTFP debates…

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  • December 21, 2015 at 9:14 am
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    A very interesting debate to be had. Presumably they will apply the same criteria to all coverage? “That cheque presentation only got 26 hits. No more of those…” etc etc

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  • December 21, 2015 at 9:17 am
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    Such awful news from a weekly paper that for decades had the respected John Pollard as its Barnet FC reporter and the closest of links with the club through its legendary editor Dennis Signy.
    However, I guess this will be happening more and more all over the country as the dreaded clicks rule.

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  • December 21, 2015 at 9:49 am
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    The question Dick asks is ‘are publishers right to do this’

    Simple answer is yes. They are right. Why publish content nobody is reading?

    As the writer says in his posts other content is performing better so concentrate on that and other traffic drivers.

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  • December 21, 2015 at 9:57 am
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    Staggering.
    I’m sure I only had a couple of glasses of mulled wine last night… but I appear to have woken up in a world where newspapers no longer have sub-editors, where Press photographers, editors and MD’s are fast disappearing species and NOW sport – the deepest lifeblood of most local newspapers – is being drained.
    This sort of cut shows there are no sacred cows left in local newspapers. If any sort of financial argument can be made to cut, it will be cut.
    How can you have a local newspaper worth its salt if your local team’s games are not covered by a locals sports reporter who understands the team, the players, the manager, the issues so much better than a poorly-paid, disinterested freelance based hundreds of miles away?
    I hope this isn’t the thin end of the wedge for local sports – especially on the weeklies that tend to cover the lower league clubs – but I fear it is….

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  • December 21, 2015 at 10:02 am
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    In the old days if you followed a lower division football team, the local paper was the only source of information available to supporters (the national press would never bother covering someone like Barnet).

    Today, fans who don’t travel to away games can get immediate updates via Twitter (official and unofficial), or from mates at the game via text message. A match report will then appear on the club’s official website and fans will discuss matches on message boards/Facebook. So is it necessary to have a reporter at away games? No.

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  • December 21, 2015 at 10:23 am
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    If every aspect of media coverage was determined by ‘hit numbers’, then readers of the Barnet Times would only be seeing content involving Taylor Swift, deaths and bomb hoaxes.
    The Eggman may think a couple of hundred hits is nothing, but the Barnet Times should (as is said above) be revealing how many hits other stories get, and what level it considers acceptable.
    A major catalyst for this decision appears to have been the staff/travel costs from London to Carlisle and back, rather than one based purely on a digital agenda.
    The second is clearly Watford’s remarkable rise up the PL, so the Barnet reporter is being switched to cover Watford.

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  • December 21, 2015 at 10:24 am
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    I have to agree with the eggman, if you’re publishing stories that no-one is reading no matter how worthy what’s the point in publishing it? If a restaurant has a dish that no-one buys, am pretty sure it won’t be on the menu for too long

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  • December 21, 2015 at 10:28 am
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    Think Kendo has missed one key point.
    The paper is having a journalistic presence at games, but is hiring a (much cheaper) freelance.

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  • December 21, 2015 at 10:31 am
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    They are right tbf.

    Sending a reporter across the country, at great cost, for fewer than 200 web hits is pointless.

    Even the local part-time team we cover gets more hits than that on our website.

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  • December 21, 2015 at 10:36 am
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    I would argue it is necessary, Kendo. But you have to offer opinions and plenty of humour in your reports – not the usual match-reporting fluff that many reporters on locals stick to. Make a name for yourself and people will read it.

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  • December 21, 2015 at 10:53 am
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    So I wonder how many people actually buy the newspaper to get the benefit of Barnet reports? And will sales of the printed version plunge because they no longer get away match reports? Be fascinating to find out.

    I have to agree with the ruthless logic which has been applied to this decision, though. If nobody’s ready the copy, whether on-line or in print, it’s not worth the cost of sending the member of staff to cover a game.

    Doesn’t mean I have to like it, though.

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  • December 21, 2015 at 11:20 am
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    The problem with the point raised by Kendo Nagaski – a match report will appear on the official website, therefore it is not always necessary to have a reporter – is it could surely be applied to all stories.
    Why bother with court reporting, when the police will no doubt publish the outcome of a trial? Why bother with covering local councils, when they will issue a press release detailing any announcements?

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  • December 21, 2015 at 11:38 am
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    Can’t you get one of the fans to write the match reports?

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  • December 21, 2015 at 11:38 am
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    Rather than being used as another stick with which to beat those with an all-digital agenda, this is probably more to do with staff costs. When I worked on the sports desk of a TM daily title in the 90s-Noughties, we soon stopped sending staffers to away games hundreds of miles away for cost reasons. The issue is more one of loss of knowledgeable local colour (a freelance from Carlisle won’t know anything about Barnet’s star centre-forward) than anything to do with digital hits.

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  • December 21, 2015 at 11:45 am
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    Disgruntled hack, it’s only football, trivial when compared with court reporting or council meetings. There is no danger to the public interest posed by an inaccurate or biased football report. If cuts have to be made (and they do) then no longer sending a reporter to far-flung places like Carlisle, Exeter and Hartlepool seems an obvious thing to do.

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  • December 21, 2015 at 11:49 am
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    Completely agree with Disgruntled Hack.
    And surely that’s the nub of the point. the Barnet paper’s match reporter is there to give a unique, independent but very well informed viewpoint on something important to the community and presumably a reason why people take the paper.
    If it is the paper of record, then Barnet match reports are also important as a source of information for future generations.
    Plus, and not mentioned here, it’s not ALL about the hits, you know? There may well be thousands of physical paper readers who DO read the match reports and look forward to them.

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  • December 21, 2015 at 12:38 pm
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    As dick says and as we all commented previously on the TM digital target piece,this will be the sign of things to come and a cheap cop out when it comes to sorting the staff that are no longer needed, it makes it easier for the faceless ones to be able to use this stick to beat them up with rather than the longer process of managing soneibe out.

    Beyond predictable and you watch it happen all through the coming year across all regionals

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  • December 21, 2015 at 12:49 pm
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    All those who think this is the right decision have the same short term view as the media companies. Currently Barnet may attract few hits but what happens when Barnet have a cup run or are pushing for promotion? The Barnet Times will have lost credibility by not sending their reporter to games, and will miss out. You get tremendous respect from club players, staff and fans from travelling to games. Then when there’s a big story – you get it.
    When I travelled the land following a lower league club I spend time chatting not just to players and manager, but the kit man, the groundsman, the family and friends of players, even youth team players and their families. That’s where stories come from. Big stories. Such as the club is about to go into administration, or Chelsea have made an offer for the full back. Stop going and you are no longer part of the fabric of the club.

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  • December 21, 2015 at 12:59 pm
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    Very interesting, I suppose there are only x amount of Barnet fans, and then of that amount only a certain percentage are going to visit the site to read the articles.

    Then your fighting for their eyeballs from the club site, Skysports, BBC, fan forums, etc

    Any newspaper covering a small club will have this issue, it will be interesting to see if this attitude takes off.

    Looks like they have come to the conclusion they will never get any hits out of the coverage, or make money out of it which is probably a fair conclusion to arrive at.

    However, I think local papers are changing their philosophy now. If they stop covering their local clubs – I think the fans will take up the slack on their own sites, “at the end of the day” anyone can write a match report.

    The problem for me is, if the newspaper don’t cover lots of local issues on the basis that people aren’t that interested in them – who will and what will local newspapers become if they are only interested in chasing web hits?

    For me – they will stop being ‘newspapers’, they will lose local prestige and standing – and they’ll end up more or less like every other website on the web. If you pander to the internet crowd you’ll end up with cat pictures every day – there has to be some balance.

    And what happens if Barnet suddenly start playing well and go up the leagues, do you cover them then? What happens if Watford plummeted into obscurity – do you stop?

    One thing I can tell you is the fans will remember how well or not you get behind their local team when they were down in the dumps.

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  • December 21, 2015 at 1:33 pm
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    Ian: A few hundred views is clearly not acceptable for the title in question here, we don’t need their numbers to see that.

    I would imagine internally this conversation has taken place and they have a threshold for views – I don’t really think that needs to be divulged.

    I think the key with these discussion is not worry about how many views is enough or not enough, but rather focus on coming up with the ideas that will produce content that people are really going to buy in to and engage with.

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  • December 21, 2015 at 1:37 pm
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    Maybe they should just shut the paper and the web site as that will save loads of money!

    I can see the business logic but a newspaper (or web site) is the sum of its parts. The analogy with the restaurant is good and you could see why a dish that didn’t sell would be dropped. However, it shouldn’t lead to the restaurant ‘only’ serving its two most popular dishes.

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  • December 21, 2015 at 1:53 pm
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    One thing I do agree with is that this is not just about digital hits. It’s about costs. Fifteen years ago we covered our foremost rugby team’s away matches. Ditto basketball. We don’t do either now for costs reasons and that situation cropped up before digi-mania took hold.

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  • December 21, 2015 at 2:10 pm
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    @NorthernHack – you could be waiting round forever though for that ‘big story’

    All those weeks going away from home, ultimately wasting time, in order to bag that big hitter when Barnet reach the 3rd round of the FA Cup? I really don’t mean to be facetious but given the level they play at I would be happy to take the risk of deploying my assets to building a week-in week-out audience, rather than waiting for that one spike and then having traffic fall off again

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  • December 21, 2015 at 2:12 pm
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    A sad development, but inevitable I guess. And, as others have already pointed out, it’s probably the future for many. Very few managements have ever truly understood the importance of sport in local papers. Advertisers don’t want to be on sport, apparently. How many times have I heard that? Of course that could possibly be due to the fact that few of the telesales staff had sufficient knowledge to make an effective pitch to the client. There’s no fun in long trips to places like Hastings for an evening game on a freezing Tuesday night in January (I have a very long memory!) but there’s no doubt the supporters and the club appreciate the effort. However, that was a long time ago, when we were concerned about readers rather than clickers. I certainly agree there’s no point in giving readers something they don’t want but a click doesn’t mean the item has been read. I doubt that is explained to advertisers. Finally, in response to Argus, I was thrilled to see that nostalgic phrase ‘paper of record’. I fear very few papers (and even fewer managements) aspire to that in these dark days.

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  • December 21, 2015 at 2:19 pm
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    In the olden days we had no (real) idea whether the report on some tiny football club we put into the paper was being read or not.

    These days we can see exactly how many people are reading online.

    What is wrong with using that information to decide on resource?

    Sure, the sports reporter in question and a hard core of fans would like to see a ‘Rolls Royce’ service for tiny League Two or even non-league clubs.

    But that doesn’t mean it makes sense to do so in these days of being able to get the info (very easily) from elsewhere.

    If that sounds overly business-like and soulless…I’m sorry.

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  • December 21, 2015 at 2:27 pm
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    If Barnet FC were to get a tasty cup tie at home to Premier giant, the Barnet Times should no longer be able to assume it is automatically entitled to a spot in the small press box.

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  • December 21, 2015 at 2:41 pm
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    26 hits for a cheque presentation? If the cheque was written on Scarlett Johannson’s bare bum, possibly, but in the real world people would rather sit in the dark stabbing themselves in the thighs with bits of broken glass than read about cheque presentations? My old paper stopped covering those in, if I remember correctly, 1990. If digital means we stop having to do them, that’s fine by me.

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  • December 21, 2015 at 3:00 pm
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    A lot of local papers now rely totally on clubs, even at a fairly senior level, sending in their own reports for no payment. It results in some hilarious and usually non-edited totally biased material being used regularly.
    The days of the trainee reporter being sent to cover sport (ANY SPORT!) as part of training seem long gone. Many a kid (like me) was seen hurrying off to the library to learn the rules of (say) hockey.
    My local football team has not seen a JP reporter for many moons. That’s all in the past.

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  • December 21, 2015 at 3:05 pm
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    mediamonkey. Apply digital logic to papers and that’s why JP don’t send reporters. Small crowds, so group editors assume no interest. Actually there is; people who don’t go like to read how the team is getting on. It’s all those little pockets of interest that make up newspaper sales. But they are being picked by the newspaper management and accountants.
    Penalty, surely? Yes, closure.

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  • December 21, 2015 at 3:07 pm
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    sorry, I might have added people like to see an INDEPENDENT report, not a skewed submitted one!

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  • December 21, 2015 at 3:45 pm
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    TheEggman – I used the cup run or big stories as an example. I got countless stories beyond match reports through football club contacts, including stories about the bigger clubs we covered, and stories for our news pages relating to players and community events.
    None of my trips were wasted. It’s the same with covering councils. You don’t just write about the meetings, but have a cup of tea with councillors afterwards. As a news reporter I was given countless stories from councillors and council officials – including front page leads.
    Any reporter with any idea how to do the job didn’t go to a match just to cover the 90 minutes, or a council meeting just to cover the agenda.
    Have standards really slipped so far that you can’t understand that?

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  • December 21, 2015 at 4:11 pm
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    Northern Hack, reporters can pick up just as much, and probably more, gossip by scanning message boards and social media than by going to matches. Especially at small clubs where everyone knows everyone else. I say all this because I support a lower division club myself.

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  • December 21, 2015 at 5:44 pm
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    The phrase ‘penny wise, pound foolish’ springs to mind. Local football clubs are an important part of any community and are ignored at local media’s peril as many contributors have pointed out. The folly was all too well summed up a few weeks ago on htfp when the Mansfield Chad tried something similar. I think Newsquest could learn from the mistake of its rival. See http://www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/2015/news/weekly-apologises-to-football-manager-over-disgraceful-match-report/.

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  • December 21, 2015 at 8:06 pm
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    Just pull the shutters down and shut the shop. Happy Christmas!

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  • December 21, 2015 at 8:37 pm
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    The problem here is that they have been covering the Barnet games on Twitter and not driving traffic to their own Barnet Times website. What they should be doing is a live feed on their own website and any Twitter posts should simply be a link to their website to follow the coverage. Otherwise you are just working for Twitter. It’s pretty simple and their website hits would improve. Barnet are not that small a club that you should be getting so few hits. Blow-by-blow match reports after the game are pretty much a waste of time these days though. Better to target particular talking points, give plenty of opinion, rate individual player performances, etc.

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  • December 21, 2015 at 10:06 pm
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    Kendo Nagasaki hit the nail on the head with his comments about Twitter and Facebook. Newspapers are largely irrelevant for sports fans when they get their information from elsewhere. As a redundant journalist I still provide match reports for my local ice hockey’s website using the same balanced guidelines that I abided by when in journalism. I still also provide match reports to both local newspapers, free of charge. If the team play badly or lose 6-0 it’s an insult to the fans to pretend that they were unlucky to lose.

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  • December 22, 2015 at 9:34 am
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    In addition most lower league clubs carry video highlights of their matches on the web. So a match report in a newspaper several days after the event saying “in the 23rd minute Bloggs crossed for Perkins to score” is a complete waste of time. Most people have already seen the actual goal either in person or on the web.

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  • December 22, 2015 at 1:48 pm
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    David Bowie, wow, that’s a five-year-old concept which also doesn’t work.

    I cannot believe that after all this time that there are still journalists who think that only posting links to a website is the best use of Twitter. It delivers less than a two per cent referral rate worldwide.

    The whole purpose of tweeting any live event is to join in the discussion and lead the debate via a common, easy to access platform. Fans at pitch side will be live Tweeting their opinions to each other, not repeatedly refreshing an m-dot site to get updates several minutes behind the action.

    What sports reporters should be doing is engaging better with the fans during the match, on Twitter if that’s the most appropriate medium. Then, after the match, start using the relevant forums, Facebook pages etc to tease opinion pieces, pictures, player ratings etc on the website.

    If you expect people to just come to your website in this day and age, you might as well pack up now!

    None of this should be resource heavy because it’s what a modern sports journalists should be doing anyway. It simply that the pre and post match conversations, which they used to join in with down the pub, have moved online.

    Having said all that, it still only makes sense to do all of this if the audience is large enough or relevant/useful to potential advertisers. I suspect that there are few clubs below Championship level where this would provide any significant ROI.

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  • December 22, 2015 at 3:26 pm
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    If the argument is that if not many people watch events it is not worth sending a reporter tthen why cover council meetings, where pathetic levels of attendance bring shame to the concept of open democracy.
    The counter argument is that if none is going then a reporter ought to, to avoid a news blackout.
    By the way, I picked up many a good news story covering sport. It is called going out and meeting people. Any reporters remember that?

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  • December 22, 2015 at 5:52 pm
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    Mediamonkey, when I was the sports reporter for a Welsh weekly for a brief but colourful tenure, outside contributors were a blessing and a curse.

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  • December 22, 2015 at 11:42 pm
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    Oliver. Engaging better with fans during the match? Along with providing live updates, taking pictures/videos and actually paying attention to the game in order to give a realistic analysis of each player? Have you ever done any football/rugby reporting?

    You’re right about Twitter links, pictures on there are more effective. But I can’t see the point of using it at all if you’re not going to attempt to get people to your website, which is where we’re meant to be trying to earn some cash in order to pay the staff.

    Are you saying there is no point covering anyone below the Championship?

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  • December 23, 2015 at 12:43 pm
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    David Bowie, yes, I am saying that it’s possibly pointless for a business to be covering anything below Championship level. That’s what we’re talking about here!

    A business has made the decision to dedicate its limited resources in more profitable areas by cutting one which isn’t. In football, there is clearly a link between potential online profit and the number of fans a club has. Simple as that!

    In terms of how passionate and vocal they are on fans’ forums, social media etc is a different matter. You can’t expect them to get involved with your website unless you engage with them first on the platforms which they find most convenient.

    Fans used to expect local sports reporters to provided the best quality post-match opinion and, arguably, the paper was the only place to get it. Today, that standard sports reporting model is lost in a sea of instant media.

    Even a website is too slow to update for everything to be relevant to the conversation which is taking place on match day. Everything you mention about live updates, taking pictures/videos and player analysis is now being done without sports reporters anyway and the only way to get people interested in your website is to engage with them regularly, get them involved and make them the ‘experts’.

    Local sports reporters have to accept that a large part of their role is now curating and sharing other people’s content. It’s the only way in which their own opinion will remain valid in the eyes of the fans and will be something which they want to read.

    Getting this kind of engagement right means that fans may visit your website more frequently and not just on or after match day!

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  • December 23, 2015 at 2:30 pm
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    Remember the old description of football reporters as “fans with typewriters”? Well, that’s everyone these days. That’s not necessarily bad news though – there’s a huge appetite among fans to comment on their teams. As Oliver explains, it’s about how you tap into that.

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  • December 23, 2015 at 2:56 pm
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    The point is being missed here. The value of being at games is not watching the match – like many have said that can be done via Twitter these days. The value is after-match quotes from managers’ press conferences and the players in the mixed zone. It’s that access which is vital and something we should continue to fight for as it creates follow-ups and other stories. It’s important publications have a presence to question managers and players on behalf of fans and not have the press officers from clubs do it.

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  • December 23, 2015 at 5:28 pm
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    SportsEditor, while you’re absolutely right about the access to follow-ups and other stories but, going back to the point at hand, the key word you’ve highlighted is ‘value’.

    How often does something come up which genuinely wants to make the fans visit your website or buy the paper, particularly at a club as lowly as Barnet? Fans want to Tweet the players/manager/club directly, they want to tease other fans with links to Facebook posts or YouTube videos and they want to share everything with their mates.

    How often do you see a local sports reporters setting up memes about this week’s rivals, creating funny Vines about a player as bit of banter or sharing powerful infographics about the state of a club’s attendance or finances? These are things which the fans like, share and, most importantly, visit your website to see more of the same.

    However, it still all goes back to the same issue. Does this take more effort than it’s worth to a local business? Unfortunately, in most cases, I think it is.

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  • December 23, 2015 at 7:06 pm
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    The days of blow by blow match reports went long ago. Most match reviews are comment led. This would not be possible without actually attending the match.

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  • December 24, 2015 at 9:21 am
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    “The value is after-match quotes from managers’ press conferences and the players in the mixed zone”

    Not sure I’d agree – most post-match quotes are boring, sanitised and completely in keeping with the party line. Plus you can get all of them from sources other than local newspapers now (Twitter, radio, club websites etc).

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