Conflict of Interest - By a Spurs Supporter

By Sunshine
November 9 2004

Conflict of interest Most of the people I know don’t like sports journalists and the reason given usually goes something along the lines of articles making up rubbish and trying to stir trouble.

Conflict of interest

Most of the people I know don’t like sports journalists and the reason given usually goes something along the lines of articles making up rubbish and trying to stir trouble.

Stopping at that, though, is a bit superficial: Why are many articles rubbish and why are they more interested in trouble? Are these journalists merely nasty pieces of work or is there more to the issue?

Newspapers exist in order to make a profit. In order to do so, they need to sell in great numbers. This not only generates cash, it also attracts clients who pay to advertise their products and/or services in said paper. A journalist’s job is to recount a story. Stories are only widely read if they are deemed to be of interest. The more widely read a story, the better the circulation of the publication which prints that story.

What makes a good story, then? Well, stories need to interest people and news of a team doing well is only going to make the fans of that club want to read it. Stories criticising players, managers or any aspect of a club are going to appeal to fans of all other rival sides, plus those of the club being slated will read the piece to try and understand if there is any truth to it in the first place. It’s a win-win situation….for the newspaper.

Journalists, though, are also meant to be on a mission to present the reader with the facts in as unbiased a manner as possible. Widespread recognition of impartiality is (or should be) a hack’s Holy Grail, though it may not result in the greatest financial rewards.

Sport, with football being no exception, produces passion and, contrary to what the layman would like to believe to be the case, journalists are not immune to it. They’re not simply in love with the game itself, in most cases, they’re passionate about a team. The nature of sport, with its acute competitiveness, means that this passion, in turn, in many cases becomes distaste of rival sides…a distaste which can sometimes boil over into downright hatred.

Where is this all leading us?

Well, I don’t know many journalists who have the ‘luxury’ of writing just about their beloved club, which means that most of them have to produce stories about rival clubs. Whilst a journalist’s knowledge of his favourite team probably knows no bounds, his interest and knowledge of other sides will most likely usually be more meagre.

So, we have a journalist who has to write an article about a club he dislikes (intensely in some cases), he needs to make the piece ‘spicy’, his knowledge is sketchy and his relative lack of interest means that he probably won’t spend the time necessary to check his facts, nor will he care to do so.

The final ingredient which needs adding to this infernal broth regards the English language. Laymen often do not understand why the Law is so complicated. The reason is simple: Words are not numbers, so their meaning is not ‘mathematical’, not certain (leaving aside the more advanced mathematics for the purposes of this explanation). The Law has developed its own use of language, with each term (or specific combination of terms) having a specific meaning in order to exclude individual interpretation of what is written/said as much as is humanly possible. Nevertheless, there are thousands of lawyers and judges, some paid very handsomely indeed, who try to interpret the Law to their client’s advantage (and sometimes succeed in doing so).

How is this relevant to journalists?

Journalists have non of these particular linguistic constraints. They can write what they like, put any slant they want on an issue and interpret any situation the way they see fit. The result is, in many cases, the sacrifice of truth on the altar of what in their opinion constitutes a good story. Their opinion of a good story, though, is widely regarded as absolute, unadulterated garbage by the fans of the team that read it.

A conflict of interest, indeed. Who’d be a journalist, but even more to the point, who’d be a reader?