Rugby World Cup coverage: the thin end of the wedge

OK so rugby is a passion of mine but bear with me - this post is still about the media.

I have become increasingly frustrated by the coverage of the England team in the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand. Not the match coverage - that seems accurate and fair: England are poor, limited, shapeless and seemingly clueless about how to change.

What has frustrated me is the pious finger-pointing within the press that seems determined to label the team as alcoholic, arrogant thugs who've let their country and the sport down.

There are key incidents that have been cited as evidence:

1. The squad's attendance at a Queenstown bar holding a 'dwarf racing' evening
2. Mike Tindall with his arm around a 'mystery woman' shortly after marrying the Queen's granddaughter.
3. Chris Ashton, James Haskell and Dylan Hartley being offensive to a hotel worker
4. Manu Tuilagi jumping from a ferry into the sea at Auckland

You can make up your own mind about how you feel about those incidents when you read about them. Some will find them deeply offensive, some will find them not worth mentioning and some will see somewhere in between.

My point is more to do with the lack of honesty in how the media has covered these incidents.

Take the Guardian's rugby correspondent, Robert Kitson. He wrote a very derogatory piece about the players following the night out in the bar.

Fair enough - he's entitled to his opinion. But then we get to the paragraph about this not happening with New Zealand or Australia - and he specifically cites The All Blacks coach Graham Henry as the kind of manager who would not tolerate this behaviour.

But then what was a this story tucked away a couple of weeks later? New Zealand stars caught drinking heavily and smoking in public.

Right. So the 'Henry The Disciplinarian' that Kitson described will take action for sure? No. Cory Jane played a couple of days later in his usual starting berth.

Then we get repeated articles about Warren Gatland and how his success is down to the tight ship he is running and the fact there are alcohol bans in place.

This is the same Warren Gatland desperate to recall Gavin Henson and willing to recall Andy Powell after their numerous previous incidents?

I highlight these not to demand action against these players but rather to highlight the media hypocrisy. They know what they are printing is not true. Gatland has been so embarrassed he has been forced to make a statement denying the drinking ban and admitting that his players have been socialising in bars until 1.30am.

Even David Campese - the self-confessed king of all England haters - has come out to defend England against the media in a podcast for The Times (no link - that's a paywall for you). So you know you're doing something wrong even Campo won't stick the boot in.

I have friends in New Zealand who have reported to me that they had a great night in Queenstown drinking with the players of another Six Nations teams. The boys from that team got a bit squiffy and decided to go diving off the pier into the lake. I don't remember seeing that one reported although there were journalists on that night out as well.

So in light of what has been happening within the media this year, it seems relatively unimportant. But for me this kind of stuff is the thin end of the wedge.

The danger with inaccurate reporting is that it becomes cultural knowledge - assumed behaviour because as we all know, 'there is no smoke without fire'. And as we have seen with Theresa May's cat, even politicans fall for that sometimes. And lo and behold here's Fran Cotton slating Mike Tindall for being 'absolutely hammered' - when there appears to be little evidence that was the case.

I met Richard Peppiat recently and he believes that journalists draw a clear distinction between lying and not telling the truth. So not giving the complete picture about rugby players' behaviour isn't lying but we haven't been told the truth and that annoys me.

If the media really is offended by this behaviour then fair enough report it. But report it evenly or not at all.

The Age of Opinion

One thing the internet has truly enabled people to do is to air an opinion to an audience outside of a (formerly) smoky pub.

Online News is full of opinion - blogs, comments, Tweets, Boos etc etc and most of it is welcome despite the BNP's attempt to ruin it for everyone. This is something I welcome as a vital part of the ongoing democratisation of the media.

But forums are where it starts to fall apart for me. Of course I may still suffer from PTSD from my time managing forums for Newsquest Oxfordshire (hence my hatred of the BNP who repeatedly targeted our boards for spamming/trolling sessions).

Have you ever seen a news or sports forum that doesn't descend into name calling? Have you seen one where people share thoughts and consider others' views?

I'm not sure I have. I have, however, witnessed hundreds of ill-informed, soap-box mounted rants which don't seem to do anyone a favour.

Take the issue of refuse collection in Oxford. Councillor Jean Fooks changed from a weekly collection to an alternate recycling and general waste collection. Some people took umbrage at not being able to create as much waste as they liked and mounted an anti-Fooks campaign.

This focused on the issue of rats in the city and how this new scheme had led to a huge increase. Of course, it hadn't and for those reading the small print on the Oxford Mail (local papers love a protest true or not) would have spotted that the increase was due to Severn Trent ceasing to trap the sewers as they had done for decades.

But on an on this raged on the forums. Any time it was pointed out to the anti-Fooks what Severn Trent had admitted they claimed it was a conspiracy. The whole things became pointless as any discussion was ruled out by the swamping effect of the antis.

I used to be a bit of a 606 addict where I would go to 'discuss' rugby. My suspicions about 606 being, well, crap were first aroused during WC2007 when a sizable number of posters repeatedly called for Matthew Tait to be played at fly half. Matthew Tait had never played fly half at schoolboy level but somehow was expected to do so on the world's biggest stage.

But 606 got worse. It's just a place for whingers and wind-up merchants.

Wales are rubbish - everyone hates England - Martin Johnson was a rubbish player - Chris Robshaw is good enough for the All Blacks etc etc

It's just tirade after tirade. I don't think people even read other posts before wading in which kind of makes the whole things pointless.

Recently I have been seeking out forums about the iPhone thinking they would be more upstanding. But even there we seem to have the Montagues (Jobbites) and Capulets (other smartphones) waging verbal war.

I think there is a book in this: The Forum Effect and the Departure from Reason. Mmmmm I think I'll get on to OUP.

Then of course there is a major issue with defamation on forums. It is almost impossible to proactively monitor these sites and you risk libel and contempt of court every day.

With the Government taking a keener interest in online news every day I am sure some form of over-the-top legislation will be brought in to prevent the open-access to these forums. Attempts have already been made to take action against posters and one failure will not put people off

Anyay, as much as I love Twitter and Facebook and the Internet in general, some of the things I discuss will have to remain in the pub where at least people pretend to listen before ripping me to shreds!

Football fans and the breakdown of society

Alright so the title is slightly over-the-top but football fans are getting on my nerves.

I used to love football. I was a regular at Pride Park and worked my holidays around major championships that England or, more rarely, Scotland were involved in.

But football fans have ruined it for me. Not all of them, but the snarling, vociforous majority who excuse their shocking behaviour by whimpering 'it's because I'm so passionate'. I'm passionate about plenty of things without turning into a cross between Norman Tebbit and the Kray twins.

And I'm not talking about traditional hooligans here. I'm talking about normal people who turn into Neanderthals when their beloved team in mentioned. People who have nice families, hold down good jobs, are involved in their community and don't hold criminal convictions.

They seem to have seen Green Street,thought 'now that's passion' and hold it aloft as an aspirational standard which their middle-class upbringing will never allow them to achieve.

It's the blinkered view on the world that gets me. Their player commits a foul and it's ok. A foul is committed on their player and you can expect frothing at the mouth and death threats against the ref who failed to spot what they could quite plainly see after 12 different camera angles were played at super slowmo over a period of five minutes.


They must know the truth. Deep down the reality of the situation must flash like a beacon but hypocrisy knows no bounds with football fans.

The truth is that Vidic should have been sent off after five minutes of the Carling Cup final, that Shawcross did not commit a horrific foul and that Wayne Bridge does not deserve to be booed just because his best mate had an affair with his (ex?) partner.

Maybe we in the media are to blame. Certainly some of the responsibility rests with us.

Transferring sport from the back pages to the front has resulted in the minute details being picked over and the elevation of sports stars to A List celebs and cultural prophets.

Muppets like Adrian Durham on Talksport excuse bad behaviour and violence as the understandable result of passion and we attack the perception of failure by managers in the same way we attack politicians.

All I know is that I am glad I have rugby and that so far it hasn't gone so far down the wrong road as wendy ball.