Is sports news?

expectationlost

sure this has come up before but noticed recently these context-less headlines from the irish times breaking news coming up in my streams

'There’s an awful lot of work to do'

can anyone tell me what that is before looking at the page?

http://www.irishtimes.com/sports/rugby/2010/1128/1224284355632.html


been lots of similar headlines about golf etc which don't mention anything about which sport it is.


apart from that i don't know why these are considered breaking news or news at all.

Cavehill Red

I guess you don't like sports?

Sure, sports news is news. It's sports news. It's not hard news (not often) unless one considers raw results hard news, in which case, the new robot reporter debuting online in the US will suffice in place of journalists.

Sports fulfil all sorts of roles in society. Some of them intersect with concepts of nationality and identity in very emotional and real ways which are of great importance to many people.

Now, you might argue that people should care less about Man United and more about, say, economic developments. And I might agree with you. But I still reckon that sports news is of more relevance than covering X-Factor, which is pure PR puff.

If your primary objection is to poor headlining, I'm in agreement again. That's just bad sub-editing. A headline should adequately inform the reader about the gist of the story that follows.

expectationlost

ah come on don't compare it to x factor, im talking about news, well most papers have separate news feeds for sports, but the Irish Times doesn't it thinks 'There’s an awful lot of work to do' is breakingnews

vector

This is an excellent thread...

My problem is when they don't specifiy which sport they are writing about...

I've often had to google a players name to see what sport it is...

A big culprit is Horse Racing/Greyhound Racing/Show jumping
which all seem to use (from my semi-interested perspective) similar terms

mrsdewinter

Oh, it's definitely news. If it's something people are interested in, it falls under the category of news.

Regarding the ambiguous headlines, I have to say they annoy me too. The Times should definitely look into establishing a system of kickers which tell flags up with sport is about to be covered.

Altogether, OP, your point really highlights the way in which production journalism has failed to keep pace with technology. On a newspaper page, where a picture of a sport sits right beside the headline, most readers will be able to join the dots. In the context of a feed on your iPod Touch (well, my iPod Touch), those headlines make little sense.

It really is high time the old media stopped thinking of papers' online editions as a cut-down version of the broadsheets/tabloids that are produced in paper and ink.

expectationlost

ta, which leads to this http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056105301

would you object to a separate feed, section for sports 'news' though mrsdewinter?