Sports Journalism – Pretty Shoddy

I am tarring a lot of people with the same brush here, so apologies to the large number of worthwhile sports journalists.  However we should all be aware, by now, of my dislike for the Western Mail school of journalism (make everything a ‘shock’ and people don’t say things they ‘rap’).  And if you are wondering just how poor and formulaic the Western Mail really is check out their football reporting (not unsurprisingly they have changed it now).

But it is far from just us that have press that couldn’t find a rugby pitch if they were given a map – plenty of other nations have them.  And right now New Zealand have managed to provide us with a couple of, rather smug, corkers.

All this is thanks to Bob Dwyer and Green and Gold (a great Aussie rugby blog) who have dared to suggest that refs are pretty lenient towards the All Blacks – and done it by producing a stat that shows how many [penalties are conceded per yellow card.  The stats?  53 per yellow for the All Blacks, 8 per yellow for the Springboks and 7 per yellow for the Aussies. (this came from this article by Bob Dwyer in Green and Gold).

This has had the Kiwi press somewhat up in arms about it (ok, the two articles I have read – I exaggerate for effect).

Classics

And the ‘articles’ that these journalists use to refute the allegations are pure classics, great examples of how journalists really don’t think about what they are saying – but just want to rant and sensationalise.  That is fine on a blog like this where my income is minimal – but for a paid journalist supposedly addressing facts and the news?  Oh dear, oh dear.

Lets take a look at them then…

First up is SkySport.co.nz who in this article manage to argue himself in circles.  He starts off, to be fair, by making a good point – that is all stats need to be taken into account with a watching of the game, and understanding.  They can not be used in isolation and hope to have a huge amount of meaning.  And I agree.  He uses this to bash Bob Dwyer’s analysis.  A bit harsh that one – those of us that use, as he suggests, an intelligent eye (rules me out, but a number of those with such viewing implements seem  to have contrary opinions to the article) to watch the game have come to the same conclusion.

He suggests that anyone agreeing with Bob and Green and Gold, that the Kiwis are getting some preferential treatment and are cheating, are simple minded and biased.  It is a great paragraph or two actually.

Using the numbers of this disparity it’s easy for the simple-minded and biased, to conclude that the All Blacks are treated differently.

However now it’s time for those who have the intelligence to use a fork without stabbing themselves in the cheek to enter the fray.

Yep – he uses the old chesnut of setting up, before he makes his point, that anyone disagreeing with him is simple minded and unable to use a fork.  You just KNOW you are in for a good argument when that happens.  Put simply  - agree with me or you are stupid.  Or as he also puts it -

One hopes, and suspects, the only folk he will convince is nutter, Peter de Villiers, pig-headed anglophile, Stephen Jones and a couple of in-bred private school boys from Randwick.

Ahhhh, journalism at it’s very finest.

So what about his point? He has a little bit of one – that the pressure situations put on Oz and SA are causing them to commit yellow card offences more.  Of course that repeated infringements is a yellow card offence as well passes him by, but we can skip over that for the sake of ease.

What I do love is how he manages to make this accusation of bias and cheating something that only the stupid, ignorant and inbred would believe… and then admits the All Blacks cheat.  I again quote another classic paragraph

The All Blacks have come to terms with the new law interpretations better then their opposition. They are also fitter and technically superior. They are also smarter, enabling them to “bend” the rules to their advantage.

Bob Dwyer would have you believe this is cheating, and in the technical sense he is right. But this is sport we are talking about and bending the rules to ones advantage is part of the game.

So he even manages to admit Dwyer is right, but wants us to believe that cheating is acceptable in sport (presumably only when the All Blacks do it – wonder what his feeling on the French forward pass of ’07 was).  But remember that anyone agreeing with Dwyer was stupid, unable to use a fork properly.

Dinner must be a fun time in his Bevan’s house!

Another

There is another classic, not quite as brilliant at insulting himself – but a great effort at a pot calling a kettle black none-the-less.

Paul Lewis over at the NZ Herald has this to say on the matter.

He starts off having a go at the moaning Aussies (actually I quite enjoy that sport as well, not that we’re any better) and even admitting they did the same in 07 (putting his self analysis a step above Bevan’s).  He then also positions himself, before the article starts, as being the only one worth listening to.  A little more subtly, calling Bob Dwyer and co ‘conspiracy theorists’ (neatly linking them to the tin foil brigade and so discrediting their point of view).

The main thrust of the argument that Lewis creates is there is no indepth study of each offence, that there could again be other reasons for the difference in yellow cards.  He even tries to suggest that we should dismiss it as we already know the Kiwis have less yellows – not sure why we should dismiss a perfectly good fact and he doesn’t bother to give us a reason.

But it is his rant at Dwyer and again Green and Gold, about how there is a lack of analysis, that strikes me as so brilliant.  Not once, in the whole article, does he even attempt any analysis.  He is instead happy to have a go at Bob and G&G, about how they provide nothing (aside form stats, which we should dismiss) – and crucially provides no analysis of his own.

Surely if you are looking to have a go at someone for not backing up their argument you would have to back up yours.  But no, he doesn’t bother.  He even had a perfect opportunity – he talks about a video posted on Green and Gold where a slow mo of Kiwi offences highlighted SA or Oz ones that weren’t picked up.  But presumably he was so enjoying his ride on his high horse he forgot about his own article.

He talks about how the Aussies and SA have to give away offences because the Kiwis are so much better, faster and stronger.  But again fails to give us the analysis he demands of others.

It seems sports journalists are great at crying foul – but fail to understand the basics of forming a cohesive argument.  Blogs may well suffer from the same problem – but at least we own up to our own bias and don’t set ourselves up as a great source of news.