NEWS OF THE WORLD'S SNOOKER EXPOSE

Sport is all over the front page of the News of the World today. The paper’s legendary investigator Mazher Mahmood has world snooker champion John Higgins in the dock over allegations of match fixing.
According to Mahmood, whose previous victims include Sven Goran Eriksson, Higgins and his agent Pat Mooney were suckered by a typical NOTW scam and ended up agreeing to lose certain frames in certain matches in the future. This would enable a betting syndicate to clean up.
If true, the claims would be a severe blow for snooker. In fact even before the investigation has started the sport has been damaged. On the day when the World Snooker Final began, everyone was talking about foul play and not the match.
No doubt many will be as angry with the journalists as they are with Higgins. Messengers still tend to be shot. Especially when the paper has not actually uncovered any corruption which has already taken place, but instead set a trap and lured the snooker men into it.
So a lot hangs on the proof. Higgins claims his conscience is clear, Mahmood parades evidence from filmed conversations.
The outcome will be fascinating and if the NOTW has indeed flushed out a corrupt champion then that is a good result for journalism. Either way, it does the sporting world no harm to know that Mahmood and his ilk are out there. Which sportsman, when offered a bribe in the future, will be able to avoid the sneaking suspicion that he might just be on the end of a NOTW scam, and decide that the best policy is to stay on the straight and narrow?

2009: A REMARKABLE 12 MONTHS

This has been an amazing year for the sports media. On the one hand we have seen an astonishing run of compelling stories, and yet on the other it has been achieved against a backdrop of job losses and closures.

The year has been neatly bookmarked by the closure of radio stations - Abbey FM (Barrow) went in January, Central Radio (Preston) in December. In between there has been all manner of downsizing, reorganisation and general cost-cutting, frequently at the expense of journalists' jobs. Experienced staffers have been made redundant or ushered into premature retirement.

Newspapers, radio and TV have all taken a huge hit with the Liverpool Echo and Manchester Evening News both making large numbers redundant. The most spectaular implosion was Setanta UK which collapsed in the summer despite holding a contract to cover Premier League football. Setanta's misfortune was terrible news for sports journalism with both their sports channel and sports news channel disappearing. The company's Irish sports channel survives, albeit with a reduced workforce.

Many commercial radio stations have withdrawn from football commentary because the advertising revenues no longer match the expenditure. This has left the BBC in a strong position, especially in the lower leagues where many clubs are agreeing to let the Beeb mount live commentary for free, reckoning that the exposure and promotion they receive is worth having even if no money changes hands.

A worrying trend for sports journalists is the reduction in freelance fees. My own freelance income has dropped because of the Setanta problem. National and Sunday newspapers have cut back freelance fees to the extent that one of my colleagues, an experienced football writer in the North West, has given up because the pay no longer makes it worthwhile.

The cause of all this is the cataclysmic double-whammy suffered by the media. The digital revolution has made a lot of journalistic content available worldwide free of charge, and simultaneously the global recession has taken a huge chunk out of advertising revenue and general investment.

For young people like the students graduating from our sports journalism course at the University of Central Lancashire the year has been very difficult. Media organisations are more interested in shedding jobs than recruiting. My heart sinks when a reference request arrives for a talented graduate who's been offered a job in a call centre. And yet even in this nightmare landscape our graduates are finding work. One went for a production assistant's post at the broadcasting operation of a big betting company and made such a good impression he was given the job of broadcast manager. Another has landed what he describes as his dream job at a specialist tennis website.

There are jobs out there, but not necessarily in the traditional places.

Meanwhile the opportunities for bright students to make contacts and gain experience have never been better. With no money to splash around, all manner of companies are happy to give work experience. We have students engaged in a terrific variety of exciting projects with football clubs from the Premier League to League Two, rugby union and rugby league clubs and news organisations from the BBC to local papers. I am well aware that this suits a lot of those organisations very well indeed and in an ideal world much of this voluntary work would attract payment, but one thing 2009 has taught us is that the world is very far from ideal.

It will not always be like this. Around the corner we have the BBC's move to Media City in Salford which will create a lot of jobs for sports journalists in the North West. The Olympic Games in 2012 will also require the services of the bright youngsters who are gaining vital experience now. And as the media becomes more savvy at generating income from online activity we can expect to see job opportunities begin to pick up again.

The big thing for sports journalists is that sport itself has never been bigger. Harlequins and the blood capsule, McLaren and the barefaced lies, Renault and the dodgy crash, Manchester City and the managerial regime change - all great stories well reported in 2009, along with reports, debate and opinion about compelling drama on the the pitch, the track, the court and the water.

I-ONTHEBALL'S 2009 AWARDS

As the year draws towards an end, here are i-ontheball's sports media awards for 2009:

Top story: The sports reporting teams of the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph for uncovering the full extent of Harlequins 'bloodgate' scandal, a story that was sadly all too symptomatic of the state of fair play in sport 2009.
Best columnist: Brian Reade (Daily Mirror) for his uncanny knack of hitting the nail on the head and making it incredibly entertaining.
Best commentator: John Murray (BBC 5 Live). Paints the picture superbly.
Best presenter: Richard Keys (Sky Sports). Guiding us through another marathon season with good humour and the ability to put pundits on the spot.
Best pundit: Geoffrey Boycott. (BBC 5 Live and Daily Telegraph). He has the authority to speak his mind and uses it.
Digital award: Perform, the company that made the streaming of big-time sport a reality in an exclusive deal to show Ukraine v England.

WE'RE GETTING UP THEIR NOSES

Journalists are making a bit of a nuisance of themselves at the moment.

Southampton FC have banned their local paper the Southern Daily Echo from attending matches after the paper refused to hold back a report on the club's plans to redevelop their training ground. The plans were already open to public scrutiny on the council website and details had been published elsewhere so it's hard to figure out where Southampton were coming from. Apart from wanting to micro-manage the news as it affects themselves.

Down the coast Portsmouth have banned a reporter because they didn't like one of his match reports. Leeds Utd's ban on the Guardian has previously been noted in this blog. So much for the compliant press which English football is often accused of nurturing.

Even the snappers are ruffling feathers. Oliver McVeigh of the Irish agency Sportsfile has been dragged into the row betwen rugby union giants Ulster and Stade Francais. McVeigh is accused by Stade Francais of doctoring a shot of a French player gouging the eye of one of the Ulster forwards to make the incident look worse than it was. McVeigh vehemently denies the accusation. One to keep an "eye" on.

TIGER NEEDS A GOOD PRESS

Relations between the media and top sports stars are often undermined by a perception by the stars that we need them more than they need us. When push comes to shove, or more pertinently when Tiger hits a hydrant, this fallacy is exposed.

Data gathered by an American agency Nielsen reveals that Tiger Woods has all but disappeared from advertising on US TV screens. The last primetime advert featuring Tiger was a 30-sec commercial for Gillette on November 30th. This is quite a shutdown considering that 15 different companies including Tag Heuer watches, Gatorade and Nike had been using Tiger in regular TV commercials since June.

QUOTE UNQUOTE

Daily Mirror columnist Guillem Balague identifies one of the greyest of grey areas in journalism in the sports pages of today's paper.

Guillem is an acute observer of Spanish football and he is also no mug when it comes to the fancy footwork of the media.

His theme today concerns the comments attributed to the Wigan Athletic boss, Roberto Martinez, who was quoted in Spain as criticising Sir Alex Ferguson. Martinez denies making the comments.

Guillem points out that "journalists work within an unwritten set of rules when it comes to what is said 'on the record.'"

He goes to explain that to some journalists "off the record" means it's OK for the information to be used, providing the name of the person who gave the info is kept quiet.

To others, "off the record" means the info is for background only.

He is quite right. My advice to anyone dealing with a reporter is to forget "off the record." If Martinez didn't want his opinions reported, he should have said so.

BLOODGATE

It has been a cracking year for journalism in the Daily Telegraph. Their MPs expenses scoop has been the story of the decade and the last couple of weeks has seen the sports team weigh in with the fascinating Bloodgate revelations.

This tale involves pre-meditated cheating by Harlequins RUFC in high profile rugby union matches, the unmasking of the villains and further revelations about a cover-up. It's great stuff, and perfectly tailored to the paper's readership which has a greater interest in rugby union than, say, readers of the Sun or Mirror.

Rugby union is, of course, no stranger to widespread deception on an organised scale. For decades the so-called amateur sport surreptitiously paid its leading players. It was often said that the only difference between union and the openly professional rugby league was that the league players paid income tax on their earnings.

More worryingly, the bloodgate scenario is part of a wider culture. The stakes are so high in top sport that cheating is sometimes too much of a temptation. The McLaren F1 team's attempt to deceive the authorities when Lewis Hamilton was overtaken under safety car conditions this season was another sign that integrity is not the thing it used to be. Now it has also emerged that the FIA are investigating suspicions that Renault ordered their driver Nelson Picquet to crash during the Singapore GP last year, knowing that the safety car would be deployed and that in turn would help their principal driver Fernando Alonso protect his lead - which it did.

Journalists must continue to expose this sort of action, whether writing about it in the Telegraph's print and online editions or using TV slomo replays to reveal footballers taking a dive.

CAN MURDOCH SAVE THE MEDIA?

I take a small amount of comfort from the closure of the freebie, The London Paper. I'm gutted for the journos who are losing their jobs but encouraged by the response of several media commentators who see this as evidence that Rupert Murdoch (owner of The London Paper) is moving towards paid-for news instead of giving it away for nothing.
The Guardian quotes Murdoch recently stating that his goal is to "increase our revenue from all our content." And that includes online content.
That is where, perhaps, a glimmer of light can be found in what has been a pretty dark sky this year. If Murdoch's News Corp really is developing a method by which money can be made from online news, then the long-term benefits to journalists will far outweigh the current gloom at The London Paper.
The Guardian quotes media analyst Douglas McCabe: "Murdoch is saying 'enough is enough.' He's saying newsrooms have value and by giving away free content you devalue them."
That isn't just music to my ears as an educator of journalists of the future - it should resonate with the entire industry as well.

PETER REID STEALS THE SHOW

When a new kid moves into the street it's always a cause of gossip, and the arrival of a new presence in the TV football market is no different.
Generally, the columnists have given ESPN a positive reception although Martin Kelner in The Guardian complained that there was "scarcely a whiff of innovation." Oliver Holt in the Daily Mirror described presenter Ray Stubbs as "excellent" but Giles Smith in The Times was unimpressed by the set, describing it as "somewhere between the interior of a building society and the inside of a dishwasher."
The man who caught the critics' eye though was none of the players in Everton v Arsenal but Peter Reid in the pundit's role. "The world's first made-for-HD sideburns," was Smith's description, while Kelner reckoned that Reid's "patchy grey mutton-chop sideburns make him look either like a Dickens character or the new face of Special Brew."
High Definition is one of TV's latest advances but it does few favours to anyone with a less-than-perfect complexion. Smith used this to neat effect: "Who would have thought that Reid's facial hair would end up driving HD set-top box sales? But that's football in the 21st century."

KEOWN TAKES NO PRISONERS

At Molineux on Saturday where Wolves lost 0-2 to West Ham. Wolves lacked composure at both ends of the field while West Ham, without being outstanding, produced a tidy display and had a bit too much class.
Talking to Martin Keown in the press room beforehand. We were watching TV pictures of Hull v Chelsea and Martin was bemused that several of the press guys were taking no notice. "Maybe they're completing their preparation for this one," I suggested. "Should have done it before," growled Keown. The spirit of the Highbury back four lives on.
John Motson was the BBC commentator at this one. It's his 39th season, he told me, which means he's only one ahead of me. My first season as a professional sports reporter was 1971-72 when my debut was Rochdale Reserves v Southport Reserves and a skinny young lad called Peter Withe couldn't get a game in Southport's second string. A few years later he won the European Cup with Aston Villa.

A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS

This year's graduates from the Sports Journalism course are heading out into the world seeking jobs. It is not an easy task at the moment. Many of them are working for nothing, looking to improve their cvs and hoping to be in the right place should a vacancy crop up. But this is nothing new, and by way of example and encouragement I offer this tale which starts more than 25 years ago.
As sports editor of BBC Radio Merseyside I was delighted to have the services of an enthusiastic volunteer who turned up every weekend to work on the station's Sunday football show. This involved reading results from the various local amateur leagues on Merseyside, and compiling match reports from details sent in by the clubs. Soon my man began to head out to matches and report himself, using the reel-to-reel tape recorders we used in those days to interview the players and managers. He was good at it, so he began to pick up paid work filling in when staffers were on holiday. His agenda included off-beat reports like going up in a hot-air balloon and commentating on homing pigeons. Then a full-time contract became available and he was the obvious choice. He was in.
His agenda was now Liverpool and Everton, and his destinations were Wembley and various big venues across Europe including the 1985 European Cup Winners Cup Final. Then came a move to BBC TV, initially as an assistant producer with A Question of Sport in Manchester. From there he moved to TV Sport in London, climbed a few more rungs on the ladder, became established as a presenter and a personality in his own right and this week made headlines by becoming the new face of football on ESPN.
His name is Ray Stubbs.

GETTING THE TIMING RIGHT

TV technology has seldom been used to better effect than in the BBC's current coverage of the Open Championship.
Replays in the new hi motion system, which provides a very slow replay while retaining the finest detail, of Tom Watson's swing demonstrate the key to successful golf in a way that mere words have never been able to emulate. Seeing the rock-steady positioning of the head while the rest of the body appears to rotate is to understand exactly what a succession of golf pro's have tried, and in this writer's case, failed to explain over a long period of time.
TV technology is brilliant when used appropriately. Sky's coverage of the Test is using the hotspot device which demonstrates precisely where the ball strikes - bat, pad, body. Again, this adds a lot to the viewer's appreciation.
Golf and cricket are ideal for this approach. There is time for the analysts to do their work while nothing is happening on the field. It doesn't work so well in fast-paced sports like football and rugby league where over-indulgence in video analysis occasionally means live action is missed.

SKY'S THE WINNER - FOR NOW

There's no doubt that the real winner in the ESPN takeover of Setanta's UK rights is Sky. Where will viewers access ESPN's matches next season? Via the Sky platform. Who will produce the match coverage for ESPN? Sky Sports. This is surely not the outcome that the European Commission was looking for when it tried to enforce elements of competition in the sports rights market.
But maybe Sky should not brag too loud or too long. ESPN plans to use its new foothold in the UK market to introduce a load of American TV sport which we don't have. It will not stop with football. And as part of the Disney organisation, ESPN has resources that Setanta could only dream about. When the next round of bidding for Premier League bundles comes along, Sky will face a much tougher opponent.

SETANTA: BUST BUT NOT BUST

I've been away for a couple of weeks. Since my last update Setanta UK has folded. I received a document from the receivers inviting me to submit details of the money I am still owed. I haven't bothered to fill it in. As an unsecured creditor I will receive nothing and the amount I'm owed by Setanta UK is fortunately not that much. The following day, bizarrely, I received two cheques from Setanta. The cheques were both from Setanta Ireland which is still in business. Setanta Ireland has always been my main client - it's their producer in Dublin who assigns me matches and it's they who pay the majority of my fee and all my expenses. Because I've been abroad in Greece and Canada I couldn't pay the cheques into my account until today so I wait to see if they are of the rubber variety!

FREELANCE FLUTTERS

The problem with being a freelance in a volatile world like sports broadcasting is that your employment often depends on circumstances completely beyond your control.
At the moment two of my main clients are under pressure. Setanta has been through a well-publicised financial crisis and is not safe yet. If a proposed takeover by a Russian billionaire named Lev Blavatnik fails, then Setanta could well fold. This would leave me needing to find a new organistion to work for in the next football season, and the money Setanta still owe me for work in season 2008-09 will never find its way into my bank account.
Meanwhile Manx Radio's contract to cover the motorbike TT races ends this year. A rival radio station, Energy FM, has announced it will put in a bid for the new contract, to be decided by the Isle of Man Government. I've been Manx Radio's main commentator for six years, but there is no guarantee that I'd be retained by a different broadcaster.
I'm watching developments with keen interest!

A MATTER OF PRIORITY

Imagine you are the producer of a rolling news channel last night. How high up your running order at 11pm would you use the Champions League Final?
Seldom has the answer been as clear as it was last night. It depends totally on who you work for and whether your company has invested huge sums of money in acquiring rights to the Champions League. That may not be the way it should be, but it is the way it is.
Sky News 11pm - Champions League was the top story.
BBC News24 11pm - Champions League was item five, after MPs expenses, Lahore bomb, BNP and Baby P.
How could two news producers make such dramatically diverging editorial decisions? I suggest the answer is not unconnected with the sum of £240 million paid by Sky for rights to televise the Champions League. One can understand them going big on it. One can also understand the BBC lacking the same enthusiasm - but to run it at item five? When it was a fresher story than any of the other four?