With the absolute saturation coverage sport gets in the media it's becoming increasingly apparent that there is not enough sport to go around.
I love sport. Most sport. Not golf. Golf is a game. I could watch or participate in sport all day everyday. Sport can be exciting and can get the blood pumping. Sport is good for kids and good for adults.
But sport news has almost ceased to be sport news. Sport news should be "Essendon won by 12 goals" or "Man United drew 2-2 with Liverpool". This is news because news is information that you didn't know previously. News is new! "Wow, I was unaware that Justine Henin retired, thanks for that piece of news!"
Nowadays opinion and belief and absolutely boring no-brainer cliches and catchphrases have replaced sports news. Truly blatantly obvious facts have become sports news. Let me present some examples:
"Sydney FC will be working on their accuracy in front of goal prior to this weekend's game."
"Player (whomever) from club (whichever) believes that the opposition (are you still with me?) cannot be taken lightly this weekend."
or rubbish like this:
"Coach of ... denies speculation that he is considering signing a contract extension for the 2012-2013 season".
Is there a team in sport that does not consider accuracy something worth working on? If a player said "well this weekend we're going to smash the opposition because they are useless" - that would be news! And the old chestnut of asking a question in a news conference, having it denied and then making that the story is pretty amateur journalism. (Buckingham Palace denies rumours that Prince Charles has been abducted by aliens).
So, sports journalists - come on! Go and find a real story. Get away from the pack and do some investigating. Ask a question to which you don't already know the answer!
You can do it!
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