Andy Bull, on Guardian Unlimited, has published a damning critique of the state of the 24/7 sports news culture. The arguments are not new - Nick Davies’s Flat Earth News is cited in the piece as highlighting many of the problems on the news and features desks, too.
But take a look at some of the issues raised and post your opinion in the Comment box below

With most sports news stories, the first quotation mark stops my mind in its tracks. Take this story in front of me now, from a stale old broadsheet of a month or two back:

“Fulham are preparing to move Roy Hodgson upstairs and make John Collins their fourth manager in a year.”

So reads the first line. The first thought prompted by digging up an old story like this is a reminder that the “news” that each day is presented as incontrovertible fact is actually nothing of the sort.

It’s just a neat example of the style of news writing that has become depressingly prevalent: the template that says an opening paragraph must encapsulate the story, and from there on the word count must justify itself through quotation from a player, manager or in fact anyone with any kind of vague official relation to the story. Read the rest of this entry »

WHAT: The British Olympic Association will announce the slalom canoeists selected to Team GB for this summer’s Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.

WHEN: Wednesday 21 May Read the rest of this entry »

BBC Blast is seeking to place 40 work experience sports reporters at its local radio stations and websites around England, each of whom will work unpaid for two days per week for eight weeks this summer. Read the rest of this entry »

TALES FROM THE TOY DEPARTMENT: As part of the SJA’s 60th anniversary, we are publishing a collection of articles that celebrate the best of British sportswriting, commemorating some great sporting events of the past six decades, or which recall how our business has altered since 1948.

Here, in an extract from his collection of football writings, we publish with his permission a feature by McIlvanney on Best originally printed in The Observer Magazine in 1992 in which he astutely foresaw a similar self-destructiveness in another footballing genius, Paul Gascoigne Read the rest of this entry »

We have a bumper batch of new members to welcome to the Sports Journalists’ Association, as more colleagues discover the many benefits of being an SJA member, including significant cost savings on events and the ability to obtain an internationally recognised press pass. Read the rest of this entry »

The Sports Journalists’ Association today called upon all active sportswriters, photographers and broadcasters to refuse to pay any charges, or meet demands to hand over image rights, in return for accreditation to the British Squash Open, which is being staged this week in Liverpool.

The SJA’s call is supported by the Newspaper Publishers’ Association, UK Sport and national governing body England Squash. It follows the SJA being contacted by a number of sources expressing concern that Cheshire-based International Sport Group, the championships’ promoters, had originally demanded a £250 fee from photographers or to have unrestricted rights to the images that they might shoot at the event.

“We at the SJA are totally opposed to any move by sports organisers to charge bona fide working media for access to their events in order to go about their proper daily work,” an SJA spokesman said.

By Andrew Moger, Newspaper Publishers’ Association
The football authorities have decided against insisting that all journalists and photographers have to carry the leagues’ own “Press Card”, and instead, Football DataCo (FDC), on behalf of the Premier League, the Championship and lower leagues, has said it will continue to recognise the UK Press Card Authority card, otherwise known as the “Met Card”. Read the rest of this entry »

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Manchester United’s Cristiano Ronaldo has been named the Football Writers’ Association Footballer of the Year for the second consecutive year. Read the rest of this entry »