THERE is a classic still from season two of The Simpsons wherein Homer, helping his son campaign for class president, produces a poster reading “SEX! Now that I’ve got your attention, vote for Bart!’”
The slogan was a throwaway sight gag 30 years ago, but anyone who has worked in sport across Scotland will recognise its bait-and-switch spirit is alive and well in our media’s output, especially this weekend...
Scroll through the sport section of any national newspaper website in Scotland and you’ll invariably have to sift through mounds of creaking Old Firm content before uncovering how Robert MacIntyre played at Augusta the night before.
Coverage of minority sports and even other football teams is almost apologetic in its presentation. Halfway down a six-paragraph tidbit on Ally McCoist’s latest hilarious jibe, you’ll be served a “READ MORE”; the digital equivalent of a timid tap on the shoulder, a small line of text almost quivering on screen as if to say “I hope you don’t mind, but we’ve also got an interview with Andy Murray... just on the off chance you’re into that sort of thing.”
READ MORE: Scott McLay has grand plans for Tokyo Olympics
For now, this is inevitable. Football is the world’s most popular sport, and Celtic and Rangers are two Belugas in a puddle, so it’s unsurprising column inches are dominated by previews, ponderings, postulations, reports, reactions, rantings, ravings, ratings, heat maps and hearsay on Glasgow’s giants.
And, of course, the numbers don’t help. This weekend, for example, our Scottish Grand National build-up includes an interview with Harriet Graham, a Jedburgh-based trainer who broke her pelvis in November after a horse box reversed over her as she went to tend to a man she thought was having a heart attack in his car. An interesting tale by any measure, previewing a worthy event and dilligently chased up and written by James Morgan. Staff photographer Kirsty Anderson was also sent down to the Borders yesterday to take pictures of Harriet and her horses. Conservatively I would guess there’s 10 hours of manpower gone into the article. Will it attract clicks online? You never know, but I’m pessimistic.
I do know for certain it won’t outperform the next scathing remark Chris Sutton makes about Celtic though, which takes five minutes to knock up from the office and can end up funding other coverage. It’s a tricky balance, but our recent focus on acquiring subscribers is a move in the right direction for variety.
It’s why I welcome complaints, the more passionate the better. If we’re under-serving Ayr United, ignoring ice hockey or wiping out women’s football, I want to know about it. Give me the ammo to fight for your corner of Scottish sport, readers.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel