The media issue

[hodgo]

Hi team

I have thought long and hard about the media and its perception of the West tigers and in a bigger picture the nrl.
I think the issue with with modern reporting revolves around the need to produce OPINION pieces. Reporting on the whole has moved away from fact and now value a select few opinions on the majority of subjects.
As the few need to compete among themselves they tend to invent massive issues over small stuff just to gain a viewing edge.
This also allows them to trott out the opinion piece card when they are proven wrong.
I personally think its lazy reporting and it has to be damaging to club relations.

Anyway would love peoples thoughts on how to change the narrative around us as a club and maybe the nrl as a whole.

 

[cochise]

Hi team

I have thought long and hard about the media and its perception of the West tigers and in a bigger picture the nrl.
I think the issue with with modern reporting revolves around the need to produce OPINION pieces. Reporting on the whole has moved away from fact and now value a select few opinions on the majority of subjects.
As the few need to compete among themselves they tend to invent massive issues over small stuff just to gain a viewing edge.
This also allows them to trott out the opinion piece card when they are proven wrong.
I personally think its lazy reporting and it has to be damaging to club relations.

Anyway would love peoples thoughts on how to change the narrative around us as a club and maybe the nrl as a whole.

The biggest problem is the amount of content they need in the modern news cycle and that programs are based around ratings. 30 years ago there were a couple of news shows and the odd footy related tv show. We know have multiple tv shows daily and a 24 hour sports news channel. All these shows need content and the easiest way to get that content is through opinion pieces. Then once you are doing opinion pieces a negative or contoversial opinion will rate higher than a positive one so it pushes us down the path to negativity.

 

[JD Tiger]

Good OP mate, thought provoking. It's an interesting perspective and I think you're right. I'll have a think on what we can do to change things.

It appears articles have either got to be informative or controversial, and if they can't get the big scoop, then controversy it is. But yes I'll give it some more thought.

 

[TonyTiger]

Hi team

I have thought long and hard about the media and its perception of the West tigers and in a bigger picture the nrl.
I think the issue with with modern reporting revolves around the need to produce OPINION pieces. Reporting on the whole has moved away from fact and now value a select few opinions on the majority of subjects.
As the few need to compete among themselves they tend to invent massive issues over small stuff just to gain a viewing edge.
This also allows them to trott out the opinion piece card when they are proven wrong.
I personally think its lazy reporting and it has to be damaging to club relations.

Anyway would love peoples thoughts on how to change the narrative around us as a club and maybe the nrl as a whole.

Wine and dine them at great expense, introduce them to our own version of Uncle Nick, write their stories for them, slip a large bundle of marked notes into their pockets - wait for their next tax return then notify the ATO with a list of fringe benefits.

 

[Moh]

I've thought about this season on season.

And I know it's cliche, but it ultimately goes back to winning and performing consistently - because the trouble right now is, these reporters pay us no attention. They see where we are at on the ladder, where we have been for many years, and that is literally all they base their opinions on.

How many of them delve a little deeper, and can tell us how good a prospect someone like Blore or Mac is? How we have had injuries/suspensions at bad times with BJ, Twal and Musgrove to name a few. They don't know much about Simpkin let alone Liddle, yet we have to do 'everything' we can to keep Harry - and yes Harry is a different beast to both of those guys, but it's not all that dire in that position.

They're happy to complain about our salary cap being a mess with the likes of Packer and Reynolds - yet put no blame on super-coach Ivan. And when we drop them like they deserve to be, they scream player welfare.

At the end of the day we just have to understand that they don't know us, and will not bother to know us until we're a successful club.

 

[supercoach]

News today is all about headlines and breaking news, quality substance is a very low priority. This applies to all news and most news and media outlets. The days of having a intelligent and we’ll researched sports article is long gone. The likes of Roy Masters, Mike Gibson and Ian Heads are gone

 

[old_man_tiger]

Hi team

I have thought long and hard about the media and its perception of the West tigers and in a bigger picture the nrl.
I think the issue with with modern reporting revolves around the need to produce OPINION pieces. Reporting on the whole has moved away from fact and now value a select few opinions on the majority of subjects.
As the few need to compete among themselves they tend to invent massive issues over small stuff just to gain a viewing edge.
This also allows them to trott out the opinion piece card when they are proven wrong.
I personally think its lazy reporting and it has to be damaging to club relations.

Anyway would love peoples thoughts on how to change the narrative around us as a club and maybe the nrl as a whole.

"Opinion" will kill western democracies. It is a much bigger problem than NRL journalism but I still agree with you as WT outrank western democracy (just my opinion).

 

[gallagher]

Just pick and choose who to read.

 

[mike]

In our household we call the nightly news the Doom and Gloom show. It’s been that way for a very long time.

 

[HowDugWT]

NRL journalism is just them desperate for a headline and half the time it is way off.

 

[tigger]

These guys (media) just want content.

I'm not sure how active Wests Tigers management is in providing content to the media. Constantly providing content is one way having some level of control over the narrative. You'll never have total control and the media will always rip in if things go wrong, but the more interaction an organisation has with the media, the more it can convey its perspective.

I would think that an NRL team would need an even greater focus on media management than most companies do.

 

[innsaneink]

We're an easy target

The NRL Media machine is a massive business in itself and the NRL official website even lends itself to the trash spouted.
Shock jock talk back radio, garbage like new idea etc etc... It's all the same.. Drama drama drama

It's garbage

 

[Furious1]

Social Media has killed real journalism. It's very hard to get the "scoop" on things when anybody can provide it to a wide ranging audience. Most of their stuff these days is for clicks due to falling ratings/numbers.
As for our club, every story needs a villain and that villain is us. Only chance of changing it is to become successful. Stop giving them negative stuff to write about.

 

[Swordy]

Great post. Watch the evening news and it always opens with 'BREAKING NEWS', and its usually a run of the mill story that isn't important. It used to be a run of the mill story, but if you put 'BREAKING NEWS' in front, it gets an idiots attention.

It's clickbait. Take it for what it is and just be more discerning about what you read and how much value you put to it

 

[TrueTiger]

The age of technology has certainly changed the way we view things today....
In the past you would get the newspaper go straight to the league section and look for results or anything else RL,then at 6 at night was the news and you would wait for the sports section to come on....
Nowadays,surf the net,twitter,fb,instagram are all at the finger tips anytime of day....
In the old days if I took a wee in the park,no one would care..these days with iphones etc i get caught by technology and before I finish my wee its all over the world..

 

[earl]

And I know it’s cliche, but it ultimately goes back to winning and performing consistently

It's just selling papers or page views or whatever. The only way to stop it is to become a top team.

 

[momo_amp_medo]

All Media lives and breeds headlines. They are after scoops and so long as there is a source whether the story is true, close to or a complete fabrication, the piece will get printed and published under their name.
And when you get on the wrong end of a high profile media writer or prove them factually wrong, then watch out as to what awaits you when you make your next mistake.

 

[supercoach]

Reality TV still dominates the ratings and it is basically all mindless crap, same with the rubbish the NRL jurno’s churn out. Quality costs money and is no certainty to rate so the media outlets stick to a winning formula. The fact we are using this platform to debate how bad they are, shows how successful their business model works

 

[Tigerbuck63]

It all depends where you are and what content you read.
Example is QLD they focus on channel 9 the teams that play on Thursday/Friday nights and the Sunday afternoon game.

Then the Broncos/Cowboys/Titans.
You heard nothing about the Tigers win over Manly the night before on the Sunday news.

We seem to get a lot of negative press sometimes its the way the club handles things (Benji an example) then there are constant leaks (Packer/Reynolds) is it coming from the club or disgruntled players?

We also have a revolving theme about not making the eight that is heavily reported on at the back end of each season.

The best way to stop it i assume is be a constant top performing club with a good culture front office and playing group.

 

[hammertime]

The problem is that sometimes the negative press can perpetuate the problem, meaning we can never dig ourselves out. What happens if JAC read that and took it to heart? We'll struggle to sign quality players, fail again and the media cycle keeps going.

I hope we can break the chain soon and that the players we pursue see a completely different story when they are inside the organisation.