A wake
Next month cricket writers from all over the country will gather to hold a "wake for county cricket coverage" in newspapers up and down the land.
The event has been prompted by the "collapse in coverage" of the county game, significantly from the traditional mainstays - The Times and Daily Telegraph - as well as other nationals and many regional papers.
The gathering will be an affectionate one but also tinged with deep sadness. Not just in harsh, practical terms as many cricket writers lose work and also contact with colleagues they have dealt with during summers over many years, but with respect to the diminishing profile of the great institution that is county cricket. Most county cricket reporters love the game and care for it deeply.
Cricket-reporting is perceived as a genteel business and a delight. For a long time it was the former and it still, at times, can be the latter. But in recent years press-boxes at county grounds have been increasingly full of anxiety, disillusionment and bad news as the national papers dispatch fewer correspondents and fewer local papers staff games.
That many of the country's most experienced and astute cricket scribes will soon assemble for a wake suggests they believe the battle is lost. And that is very sad.
Older/Newer
« WG Grace's day spoiled by Manchester United. | Mike Gatting »
3 Comments
Leave a comment
Profile
Brian Halford - Brian Halford’s look at Edgbaston.
Brian, perversely (given the nature of this posting) I feel the internet has become a double edged sword in respect of cricket coverage where few pick up a newspaper without already knowing the score(horse racing has faced similar problems)which I presume is one justification for the reducing coverage.
The Times does provide reasonable coverage of Championship Division One although it increasingly disappears into a broad divisional "summary" obviously pulled together from the scoreboard - "Trott continued his excellent form with x from y balls".
Your own blog providing the colour behind the scores is I suspect the way forward and I just hope that the powers that be at your Head Office will continue to provide the necessary support- particularly with the upcoming changes at the Post and Mail.
Hi Droitwich, yes the internet is unassailable for its immediacy of course but I hope that the people who matter will come to understand that blogs and the like should dovetail with proper reports in the papers.
You mention the divisional summary. Many times last summer reporters from the Times and Telegraph were dismayed to either be asked, halfway through a day’s play, to submit 100 wds or to submit many more than that, as requested, only to find it crunched up into a round-up next day. It’s hard to do justice to the despondency which hung over cricket press-boxes last summer.
Regarding the upcoming changes at the Post and Mail, I can only keep banging the drum and, to be fair, my immediate managers have done the same. But it’s the cost-cutters in far-off places that have the last word.
Just like this time last year at the Post and Mail the only certainty about the future is the total uncertainty.
Papers have lost the plot. Who wants to read 10 pages on Man Utd, Chelsea blah blah blah every day?