Just how yellow is Indian cricket journalism?

[Arjun]

They're paid well for what they say. Their comments are read worldwide, and are much respected. But on the topic of Indian cricket, a lot of them talk utter nonsense.

Take the recent case of the India-WI tour following the IPL. Gautam Gambhir has been labelled a mercenary and accused of treason, putting club over country, because he hid his injury during the IPL, where it got aggravated, causing him to miss the tour to WI, at least the ODI/T20 leg. The comments coming on that are at times dreadful for a paid, established unit.

At one point of time, Dhoni couldn't win either way. First, they panned him for the lack of Test centuries as against how many the others in the top six (he batted at seven) had. Once, as captain, he smashed his way to a century and then declared the innings at a mammoth total. There was plenty of time to bowl the Lankans out to win the Test. Yet, the media then found a new excuse- Dhoni put self over country to score the century.

Countless examples like these exist. The lengths they go to when they cirticise a cricketer seem better fit for the comments section of any page on Rediff, an Indian web portal. Coverage and commentary is so biased, they don't look at the other side of the debate at all, and make it look like some overly dramatic movie or soap opera. They incorrectly end a few cricketers' careers without looking at what went wrong and where they can improve, and they don't think twice about changing sides- an example is their stance on the younth-against-experience selection policy of the BCCI then. They largely supported the needless selection of Parthiv Patel, but vehemently opposed those of Raina, Venugopal Rao and RP Singh.

So is it worth switching the media off at times? Fan circles talk more sense than some of the biggest media institutions, when they talk cricket.

 

[NasserFan207]

Its similar the world over. Unfortunately, even with the sea of trash the media in sport is vital.

 

[silentstriker]

Who exactly respects the Indian cricket media outside a few names?

 

[Goughy]

Who exactly respects the Indian cricket media outside a few names?

It is possible that the non-English language stuff is good. Obviously I only read English language articles and even from mainstream sources they seem, aside from the hyperbole, to be full of grammatical and factual errors. The majority of English-language cricket writing of Indian origin that I read is of a very low standard but, as I say, for all I know the non-English stuff may be very good.

 

[ankitj]

It is possible that the non-English language stuff is good. Obviously I only read English language articles and even from mainstream sources they seem, aside from the hyperbole, to be full of grammatical and factual errors. The majority of English-language cricket writing of Indian origin that I read is of a very low standard but, as I say, for all I know the non-English stuff may be very good.

LOL no. Non-English media is utter trash. That's putting it mildly.

 

[Xuhaib]

Cricket journalism is poor world over its just not restricted to India, though there are usually one or two good ones from almost all the countries.

 

[hang on]

i find the english cricket writing the best (as found in the main 'broadsheets' and also at times in the dishrags which have had the luck to buy out some good eggs....lawrence booth and his ilk, for instance). the main indian cricket journalists - memon and perhaps bhogle or some of the cricinfo chappies - who write in different papers at different times are as good as any elsewhere though the average hack, even in the main papers, is full of overblown grammatically incorrect guff. the australian cricket writing, barring haigh, who has unfortunately fallen prey to the lure of murdoch's moolah, is pretty shoddy....here i am talking about peter lalor and greg baum and his mates in strident shrillness. i find this to be a strange state of affairs given that some of the best cricket writers of yore were antipodean.....fingleton and co., for starters. and the less said about roebucks ponderous posturing (with a rather staccato delivery), the better....

 

[shashy]

In response to the original question, this is how yellow the journalism is --> Harsha Bhogle: What's wrong with missing a tour or two? | Opinion | Cricinfo Magazine | ESPN Cricinfo

 

[Spark]

i find the english cricket writing the best (as found in the main 'broadsheets' and also at times in the dishrags which have had the luck to buy out some good eggs....lawrence booth and his ilk, for instance). the main indian cricket journalists - memon and perhaps bhogle or some of the cricinfo chappies - who write in different papers at different times are as good as any elsewhere though the average hack, even in the main papers, is full of overblown grammatically incorrect guff. the australian cricket writing, barring haigh, who has unfortunately fallen prey to the lure of murdoch's moolah, is pretty shoddy....here i am talking about peter lalor and greg baum and his mates in strident shrillness. i find this to be a strange state of affairs given that some of the best cricket writers of yore were antipodean.....fingleton and co., for starters. and the less said about roebucks ponderous posturing (with a rather staccato delivery), the better....

Aus cricket media is terrible (with the obvious exception of ABC Grandstand with Maxwell, formerly Mitchell et al). If I didn't know better then some of the rubbish they were coming up with would made me seriously question whether I actually wanted Australia to win - I ignore them from an analysis POV, in favour of blogs. Seriously give me the C9 commentary team every day before some of the tripe Ben Dorries comes up with, not to mention Roebuck (in print, I hasten to add, not on radio, where I rate him highly) when he goes on some irrelevant tangent. Imagine that, bloggers outdoing professional journalists...

English media I find contains the best reporting and also some of the worst. Fortunately the divide between the two is fairly obvious so a good sanity filter serves well there.

 

[hang on]

well said, spark.

what exactly happened in australian cricket writing and reporting for things to have come to such a pass? murdoch? he owns smh and the age now, doesn't he? the dumbing down of the population? i find that hard to believe.

can't quite figure it out.

 

[Spark]

I think it's simpler to be honest. I think they've just become the journalistic equivalent of spoilt brats.

 

[Flem274*]

It boggles the mind. Journalism requires work, and it is extremely hard to get into sports journalism from what I heard back when I was in the degree.

But then how do some of these guys get printed? In uni, if we turned in some of the stuff you see on cricinfo, we wouldn't have passed, and that's just the writing style. Quite a few get in because they're past players of course, but those who never played test cricket and still suck....eh?

 

[Cevno]

Sports journalism the world over is the same ,tbh. Not only cricket.

There are some good writers though.

 

[Cevno]

In response to the original question, this is how yellow the journalism is --> Harsha Bhogle: What's wrong with missing a tour or two? | Opinion | Cricinfo Magazine | ESPN Cricinfo

How is that yellow journalism?

Infact it is not sensationalist.

Sensationalist would have been calling them mercenaries and traitors and what not as some sections have gone out to do.
That would sell more and be read more than presenting the alternate view.

 

[Xuhaib]

I think Pakistan has a pretty decent one eventhough its very small there is Osman Samiuddin, Shoaib Alvi from Dawn is also very good Qamar Ahmed was very good though with age he's going senile.Chisty Mujahid and Omer Qureshi were class too in their times.

 

[Xuhaib]

It boggles the mind. Journalism requires work, and it is extremely hard to get into sports journalism from what I heard back when I was in the degree.

But then how do some of these guys get printed? In uni, if we turned in some of the stuff you see on cricinfo, we wouldn't have passed, and that's just the writing style. Quite a few get in because they're past players of course, but those who never played test cricket and still suck....eh?

in Journalism from what I know you need to have contacts with the right people.We live in an era of Joe bloggers so its gets even tougher now.

 

[salman85]

A journalist is going to write what's going to be read.He could come up with a perfectly logical article,but if it doesn't have it's dose of sensationalism in it,it might not be read in countries like India or Pakistan,or basically any other country where the media feeds off sensationalism.It's not true of sports journalism alone,it's true of all forms of journalism.Ofcourse,there's also the point about even Journalists having bias.In an ideal world,anyone associated with any form of media should be free of all bias and put forward a neutral view,but that's not the case.This bias translates into articles on the same topic,but with completely opposite opinions that are supposed to seem like facts.And while we are on the subject of bias,even Journalists can be 'bought' by groups to write stuff that puts them in a better light as other groups try to do the same.

There are multiple ways of writing on the same topic,the same subject,the same theme.A journalist is going to write what's going to sell and since people in the subcontinent are probably more emotionally attached to Cricket than people in other parts of the world,adding sensationalism to an article is exactly what the print media will feed on.

 

[Flem274*]

It isn't difficult to write an objective piece at all, provided you have the time and desire.

That's just the thing though. In class you get several days to write your article. In the real world you get hours, if that. The editor wants the story now, and journalists are under massive time pressure. There's a lot of hard work that goes into finding out everything needed, and you need a certain amount of time to get it.

The public relations sector is booming, and that's because PR material is the easy route to the story. Why phone three different people when you can get a summary from a PR guy? I saw statistics last year showing more and more journalists are moving into PR. Better pay for the long and stressful hours, no source hunting etc.

PR doesn't apply as much to cricket journalism, but time still does. Cricinfo's session/day/match summaries are so dull and cliche often because they need to beat the competition. They want their story out first, and damn the content as long as the right scores are in it.

 

[Flem274*]

in Journalism from what I know you need to have contacts with the right people.We live in an era of Joe bloggers so its gets even tougher now.

Not every Joe Blogger is equal.

 

[GotSpin]

Some of the articles on cricinfo are horribly biased. Though it's not surprising considering where the majority of their revenue comes from