Why have a sports editor?
| 13:02 UK time, Monday, 5 June 2006
There's an advert in this morning's Guardian for a sports editor for the ´óÏó´«Ã½. We see this as a very high profile on-air role similar to that of political editor or business editor. It'll be someone who works for both ´óÏó´«Ã½ News and ´óÏó´«Ã½ Sport and appears on TV, radio and the web.
But why create such a job and why now?
The work we've done on both sport and journalism as part of Creative Future has highlighted how important sports news is to a large part of our audience. True, there are some who are completely uninterested but there are many for whom what is going on in the world of sport is a key part of their lives.
This group includes large numbers of younger people (especially men) who ´óÏó´«Ã½ News often struggles to reach. Sports journalism which can offer real authority, expertise and insight is seen by them as a key part of what we need to offer in the future. We already have some outstanding sports correspondents and reporters but we hope this new role will give our sports news coverage even more weight and impact.
We are of course not alone in this. The newspapers have all expanded their sports news coverage dramatically over the past few years. There is a wealth of information about sport available on the web - often tailored to people's particular passions. But we believe that appointing a ´óÏó´«Ã½ Sports Editor will help us achieve our aim of offering the best sports journalism available anywhere.
The ´óÏó´«Ã½ can offer sports news at the local, regional, national and international level and we can reach everyone from the impassioned fan to the person who wants to know the headlines of what's going on in the major events. Appointing a Sports Editor of the highest calibre should give us the opportunity to claim another huge competitive advantage.
Comments
I suppose this is to be welcomed - anything which will raise the standards of journalism has to be a good thing. But take today's news for instance - would the ´óÏó´«Ã½ have had a Sports Editor waiting outside the England team hotel, for instance? It was a pathetic sight to see on the news. Maybe a sports editor would have said it wasn't right to cover the story of England flying out to Germany because there's really no story there! Somehow I doubt it.
Well *is it* good? When there are cuts and redundancies? Can't the job be done by the various sports news correspondents we've already got? And if sport, why not science or health or transport or arts? Shouldn't all these areas have their own editors too?
This can only be a good thing. A correspondent with a strong contacts book, breaking stories and treating sport with the same journalistic approach that we treat other subjects can only be a good thing. Why is there this assumption that 'any reporter can do it'? We wouldn't say that about politics or business....
" It'll be someone who works for both ´óÏó´«Ã½ News and ´óÏó´«Ã½ Sport and appears on TV, radio and the web."
Well the first thing That I can say on that is that that sounds like a very demanding Job. Working for two different sections of the ´óÏó´«Ã½, and also being on TV, radio and the web!? Do you not think that this is a bit much to ask off one person. Or are you expecting them to have no social life? Why not split the job into two or three different jobs in which they will be much less demanding and the people employed to do it will be much less busy which surely would make them do a better job?
I strongly agree with Brett Spencer sport should have it's own correspondent like all other topics. Sport for thousands of people is very important I come from a family of sports fanatics my brother only puts the news on to watch the sport. We've got all the sports channels so i think there should be a proper sports correspondent. Thats just my view anyway!