The general editor of a leading cricket website claims the regional press has “given up” on covering the sport professionally.
David Hopps, left, of ESPN Cricinfo, says regional cricket writers have had their coverage of county cricket “severely curtailed” due to cutbacks.
In an editorial for his site, David said sports journalists could instead be expected to provide “more flim-flam about where footballers go on their holidays ” rather than covering matches on a daily basis.
David singled out Stuart Rayner, of Newcastle daily The Journal, and the Bristol Post’s Steve Cotton as examples of two journalists whose coverage he said appeared to have been scaled back this season.
He wrote: “In the land where the Big Ball bounces, the traditional newspaper sector – with one or two notable exceptions such as the Cricket Paper, thriving after four years – looks on county cricket with indifference.
“First the excuse was ‘no space’. When the web came into being, that shifted to ‘no budget’. When free copy became available, the excuse became ‘no subs’. It would be a savage irony if the newspapers that have long predicted the collapse of county cricket are the first to go.
“The world for a cricket writer in England, beyond the international circuit, is an unforgiving one, and the resilience and talent of those who find a way to survive is deeply impressive.
“The few who remain, and remain entirely independently, continue to provide vital surveillance of the professional game, striving to keep it honest, challenging its decisions – or lack of them.”
The Journal and sister title the Sunday Sun were awarded the Regional Newspaper of the Year honour at December’s annual County Cricket Journalism Awards, run by the England and Wales Cricket Board, for their coverage of Durham County Cricket Club.
Speaking to HTFP, David added: “What’s happened is there’s been a gradual withdrawal from the county game in the last 30 years which started with the national tabloids and then the broadsheets. In the last few years the big change has been the removal of people at matches by the regional papers. [The Journal and the Post] are not the first, in fact they’re virtually the last.
“There are very few left with these newspapers taking these decisions this season. These guys are appearing occasionally. It seems increasingly regional papers have given up on county cricket because of budgets, management attitudes of preferring people in the office and the domination of football.
“Historically the regional paper was always the strongest monitor of county cricket. It was the area of the media that most cared about right and wrong, good and bad, and cared the most deeply – which is basically all the good things of journalism.
“If something dirty was going on with a county club, regional media were daring enough to uncover it. I don’t see that as much anymore.”
Journal editor Darren Thwaites responded: “We no longer routinely send reporters to cover away cricket matches, where copy is readily available from other sources. It’s a significant cost and commitment to staff four-day games independently, especially when both attendances and readership figures are generally quite low.
“We still provide plenty of coverage of Durham CCC and we’ve had more success with standalone stories than traditional match reports. We experimented with live blog coverage in recent seasons but sadly found there wasn’t enough audience to justify our commitment.
“Newcastle United remains our most-read content but we continue to cover a wide range of sports, reaching well over 1m unique browsers and generating almost 10m page views in May alone across the department.”
HTFP has also asked the Post for a comment on David’s piece.
David began his cricket writing career on the Colchester Daily Gazette in 1982,and served as cricket correspondent at the Yorkshire Post for five years before a two-decade stint at The Guardian.
In his piece for Cricinfo, David also suggested that social media could promote county cricket better than newspapers – with the 18 clubs within its structure currently aggregating more than half a million followers on Twitter.
David told HTFP: “Social media, I think, is protecting county cricket and the huge lack of county coverage, so part of the reason why regional papers have given up on it comes from the way social media and live blogging offer instant responses.
“County cricket fits perfectly for that and that doesn’t fit into regional press deadlines.”
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The problem in these staff-starved times for local papers is cricket is so time consuming if it is covered properly.
The issue is even more stark at weekly paper level. Certainly on my local JP paper they rely 100 per cent on the clubs e mailing in their own reports. Often the material is very badly written and not properly edited before it goes to print, which helps no-one. Often I have to read to the end to see who won!
I know through club contacts that our team has not seen a cricket reporter for at least three years and probably long before that.
It is all a shame, because cricket is a much more civilized game than soccer, with which papers at every level are obsessed, even in the cricket season.
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You could sub that headline down to Regional Press Has Given Up.
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Possibly if cricket matches were reduced to two hours for county games the regional press might be able to cover them. Obviously that wouldn’t go down with the purists but it might attract more spectators, given thevright promotion.
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Ken your suggestion is correct but it wouldn’t aid SEO.
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It’s because nobody reads about cricket on websites. They do read about football. So that’s why they’re covering football instead of cricket.
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Difficult to take seriously a sport where the weather ruins the game and distorts league tables, but yes, more civilized than footy and deserving better coverage.
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Much as it hurts me to support a Trinity Mirror senior manager, I think Darren Thwaites is right. The days have long gone when a sports reporter could stroll off for three or four days to cover cricket match which don’t even attract much more than a handful of spectators. It must have been highly enjoyable for the reporters involved, but I’m not sure that their reports were that well read. The problem here lies not with the papers but rather more with cricket – the sport needs to modernise itself.
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In some ways three-day county cricket has been the author of its own downfall in this respect. At some stage, I am not sure when, it ceased to regard itself as a spectator sport. Progress was dirge-like, teams gave up easily when under pressure and entertainment was rare. Paying customers were regarded with something akin to contempt. Several times I have seen large family crowds at festival week matches picnicing to nothing happening because a team has given up the ghost too easily and rushed for the coach home. Perhaps this selfish streak has contributed to a lack of interest which is reflected in the vastly reduced coverage of this side of the game.
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Cricket coverage on regional dailies has been in decline for years. I took a job on the sports desk of a regional daily 20-odd years ago because one of the main roles was advertised as being specifically to cover the fortunes of the local county cricket club.
Even back then, I was generally told by the sports editor that I couldn’t be spared to attend matches (even at home) because I was needed in the office.
All match coverage was eventually left to PA and the rest came from phone chats with the Secretary and the odd hurried interview with the captain or a player.
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In the current newspaper climate – cricket is about one of the least important subjects there is, I’m more bothered about courts and councils being reported properly. If someone wants to find out about a cricket match there are plenty of other places that cover them.
I suppose you could say the same about football, but at least that brings people in.
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A bit like the vast majority of the public then.
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How observant of Mr Hopps. Has he also noticed that the website he represents does FREE ball-by-ball commentaries, reports, stats etc. But then, none of that could be contributing to the demise of regional coverage, could it?
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Way back in 1993 we got a new editor on our evening paper. When he first addressed the editorial team (around four times the size it is now) he said: ‘I don’t want my staff sitting around at cricket matches all day.’ I knew I was in trouble – I was the cricket writer.
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Seem to recall that on every weekly I worked on the score books arrived in the office on a Monday and we wrote up the game from them. Had scant knowledge of cricket but it is amazing what imagination can do! Working on a regional evening, summer Saturday afternoons were spent by news reporters covering the local league matches until stumps were drawn at 7.30pm, including a running report for the sports edition that evening, an interview with the professional for a feature and a full report and scores to await the arrival of the sports staff on Monday morning. No wonder to a man we hated cricket and prayed for rain stop play!
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OK I give up. No-one really cares about cricket. Or proper regular court and council reporting. Football is life. I see now.
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You can probably say the same thing about horse racing.
Our paper had two tipsters who went to the meetings. Now none.
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The lack of interest is two way as local club cricket sides in our area just will not send in reports yet a few years ago there was often a clamour to see who got the most space.
We also have a county cricket club next door and are swamped with trivia about the squad members rather than the stuff on the field most of the time.
The game is still good but a lack of space and lack of interest combined is a strong partnership.
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Do an Editorial headcount today and compare it to 2005, there is your answer.
JP share price hit 569p in 2005, it’s now 30.5p which is the equivalent of 0.6p. Dropped by a factor of nearly 1000%, similarly so has the quality.
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I have to agree with David. In 1992 I became the Sunderland Echo’s first and as it turned out only full time cricket correspondent. Three regional papers covered Durham home and away along with BBC Radio Newcastle. Now, I think there is just the Northern Echo left. There are still some very fine regional sports writers but they have been betrayed by editors who believe football is not just their main but their only sport and some of the back page leads that entails are hopelessly repetitive.
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It is an open secret that the ‘What time kick off is X v Y’ or similar answerbait get much much bigger traffic than actual match reports.
Question is at what point do the regionals sack off the sports reporters entirely and just tell people what channel / time the game is on, along with Game of Thrones and any populist trending name.
“everything you need to know” isnt it….. or is it?
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Maybe the only refuge is 20/20. An Australian Big Bash League match between the two Melbourne clubs drew 80,000 to the MCG last summer.
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There is nothing wrong in principle with four-day county cricket (or five-day test cricket).
The problem is that a majority of the current generation has a lower attention span than a flea and seems wholly incapable of understanding the nuances of the game.
In answer to one of the previous posts, cricket HAS modernised itself, to the point where much of thethe professional game is virtually unrecognisable as the sport I watched as a county member for more than 25 years.
I and thousands of other people gave up on the professional game when it put the players in garish pyjamas and introduced banal music when wickets fell etc.
Of course, we were replaced by a new audience for the 20-20 ‘big bash’ – the name says it all. This perverted form of the game is currently popular (although perhaps declining a little in the UK. But I remember the initial propularity of the 40-over John Player League, which at first attracted massive crowds but then slumped alarmingly.
I suspect the same will happen eventually with 20-20. What then? 10-10, 5-5? Reducing the game to the two-hour contest one earlier poster mentioned?
Some of the finest coverage of real cricket came (and still comes) from the Derby Telegraph. Great writers such as the late Gerald Mortimore and Mark Eklid.
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PS
This low attention span of the younger generation is also one of the factors killing the regional press.
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