Why is boxing journalism so bad?

I know, they are a disgraceful lot. :-(

 

Sky sports Commentators are just as bad aswell, if your british your the best thing since sliced bread

 

I agree, most Boxing journalists today are horrible and actually know very little about analyzing a Boxing match. I sometimes read these guys in print or see them on television, and I think to myself, "How are they getting paid to do this?" I cringe when I think of some of the idiots who have their own columns or TV segments (although I'm not going to name any names)

 

The internet.


The internet has done a lot of great things for journalism but it has also done terrible things for it.

Boxing is not alone. What we have now are blogs, forums, etc that propagate rumors, gossips and document every little step of a negotiation, training, and every thought of everyone remotely associated to a person or event.

Multiply these thousands of times and what was a 1 pound issue becomes a life threatening, historical changing, underhanded, greatest ever, better than slice bread, little information.

Then you have forums that repeat these often with little accuracy or context with hyperbole to boot.

Take Mayweather senior and PEDs for example.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Mayweather Sr would have been laughed at in private and ignored in public. Until he brings actual proof, his chances of getting a national audience would have been extremely small.

But now with dozens of websites competing for traffic and wannebe writers trying to be relevent (looking at you Vivek Wallace) you have people with very liitle researching abilities and even smaller journalistic standards with obvious agendas propogating the smallest of rumors.

Now add fans with their own agenda. They want every word they can grab on to from promoters, trainers, fighters, fighters roommates, fighters roommates dry cleaners, dog walker - you get a very distorted, high noise discussion of the event. You get one event with millions of POV. One fighter can be shot in one fight, but the greatest thing immediately after.

It makes everyone feel good because everyone feels part of the process - from fans to wannabe journalists like Wallace. But in the end very little is actually added to the discussion. In fact, I would argue it takes more than it gives.

 

Excellent post:deal

 

Pretty funny though that this thread starts out with Jack praising a domestic journalist and railing Rafael for being biased...and every single one of his countrymen since calls out that same domestic journalist for his massive bias

 

Good journalism is finding the right mixture between keeping to the facts, being opinionated but using the facts to back it up, good punctuation, well structured grammar and having an excellent photographer and design team to make it look a million dollars.

With the age of the internet anybody can fancy themselves to be a journalist but a lot of people who do this have had no training and write their articles like they would a school project. Having said that it is an excellent way for amateur journalists to improve their skills.

I use the internet to get up-to-date news but for good articles i generally look to the boxing publications who have the time to sit and perfect their articles before sending them to print.

With all journalism it will come down to whose style that you like personally, once you've found them then your sorted.

 

Boxing journalism is suffering for the same reasons journalism in general is suffering- no money. Blogs and amateurs are providing a lot of the attention although their quality is far from that of professionally trained writers, fewer journalists have to cover more information so they do not have as much time to perform quality investigative work, and newspapers are about dead.

I went to a top 5 journalism school and wrote for years but could never quite make a living off it and switched careers. I know a guy who was a managing editor for major boxing magazines who had to work for a newspaper and espn.com doing freelance work in order to make ends meet, and he is a great writer.

 

The internet was thought to provide a great wealth of information that would propel us to a new age of enlightenment. What we didnt account for was the internet providing a great wealth of MISinformation.

 

Dan Rafael is a fat ****.

He scored Cotto/Clottey 116-111 Cotto.

Enough said.

 

Absolutely bang on. You only have to take a glance at any website and the majority of the articles are based on rumour and hearsay. I quite often just read the first and last sentence of internet pieces and skim read the rest.

There is also a fine line between journalism and just posting your (quite often unfounded and nonsensical) opinions. A lot of sites seem to post an article just to bait true fans into commenting and getting the sites hits up for advertising revenue-see boxingnews24 for a healthy dose of examples. (Seriously, does anyone visit that site for anything but a cheap laugh?)

I don't feel there's a big problem with people such as Bunce having a national bias, they're just supporting home fighters. It's when it starts to affect the facts of the piece they are writing that it starts to harm the sport-see articles written by pro Pac/Mayweather writers for obvious examples.

I don't however rely on the internet for my boxing 'news'. For reliable fight reports, reliable news and thoughtful interviews I will always rely on Boxing News and Boxing Monthly. Both are well put together, well written and properly edited magazines.

 

Great Post Jack. Why is Boxing journalism so bad? What you are seeing is really a convergence of many "Western" problems that are amplified in Boxing due to it being a niche sport.

Journalism in the West is just Bad. From media consolidation, access trumping integrity, opinions masquerading as information, News as revenue to Westerners ALWAYS looking to be entertained rather than informed there is no place for good journalism. That is just on Journalism's side.

Add to that the lack of promoters getting boxers out there when they show promise YOUNG talking to the press and doing media events and you get a wasteland. Leagues make time and accommodate and facilitate the press. Promoters do not seem to care. It is literally pocket change to put on Boxing commercials on late night TV. Think it is being done? Nope. Why talk about, write about , analyze in depth, etc.. something that nobody knows is happening?

At the end of the day though I think this issue with Boxing is the same issue with Western Journalism in general. That is why Wikileaks was able to expose so much and the Wester press never investigated it and still hasn't jumped on making stories about it.

Western Journalism, Boxing related included, is DEAD. :conf

 

Show us the guy on Pac's recent resume who isn't 2 fights off from a loss or being KTFO?

 

It's like watching a good comedy isn't it!

 

I honestly though Boxing News 24 was a joke site for a few months until people told me they were serious. Im still not sure