By Terence Dooley
When first logging onto the Internet back in 2003 nothing could have prepared me for the sheer number of boxing sites that had exploded into life during the web’s surge in popularity, link after link leading to often patchy stories, interviews and editorial content. After surveying the various outlets my overriding thought was: 'I can write just as badly as this, and twice as fast'. Within a few clicks of a mouse I went from reader to wannabe writer.
Many of my peers told me that we were at the dawn of a new age, and that the Internet would take over within a few years. However, there is still a long way to go. Only a few sites consistently produce strong original interview content, balanced editorials or well-researched historical pieces of the type found in magazines.
In mitigation, Twitter and Facebook had a huge impact on the development of online boxing journalism. Earning your spurs by breaking original news stories became a real problem, and the greater accessibility of many fighters leads people away from forums, where news article links can be dropped and discussed in great detail, to social networking sites.
Ironically, a lot of online writers struggled to adapt to the change. Those who did gained an extra edge, marketing articles using the two sites while trying to tread that fine line between informing their followers and spamming other users.
Boxing’s many Twitter users also have to box clever. Eddie Hearn of Matchroom uses the microblogging site to engage with fans and promote upcoming shows. Hearn once told me he recognises the importance of the Internet while being aware that engaging with criticisms online can lead to endless conversations. Hearn, though, manages to skilfully deflect or disregard the odd barb without losing sight of what Twitter brings to the table.
To that end, Liverpool’s Paul Smith cannily uses Twitter as a means of filtering out the many poor boxing articles and sites, separating the wheat from the chaff by opting to click through to articles only if they meet with approval from his friends. By doing this, he is putting into place the type of rigorous self-censorship required amidst the constant hustle and bustle of online life.
“The only articles I look at are the ones that are linked on Twitter by people who write such as yourself and others,” said Smith. “I like to switch off when I’m not in the gym so won’t follow all the sites.”
“Smigga” has no time for spurious news stories or controversial editorials, the “Hey, everyone, come and look at how earnest I am” opinion pieces trotted out by writers who seem to believe that interviewing people within the sport is not the done thing. Smith claims that these two approaches are endemic of what he calls the “Whopper with a laptop” approach to online journalism. Blagging, basically, while not even attempting to gain insights or gauge opinions from those within the trade.
He said: “Some sites try to make money by writing negative stuff to get people to click on them and drive the hits up. As a boxer, you might get criticised and it is nice to take it in if it is from people who know the game. They don’t have to have boxed, just know what it is about. You can take that, but if some spotty kid with a laptop who has been to one or two fights puts out something that is full of spelling mistakes and bad grammar then it ruins it for the rest of the writers.”
Smith even has one or two Walter Raleigh moments, chastising sites and writers if he notices them cutting and pasting copy without crediting. “That is one of the worst things,” stated Smith. “You’ll see a writer publish something and all of a sudden another boxing site passes quotes off as their own. Then they link you in and you think: ‘Get off your arse and do your own work’. It is lazy. There’s writers now who call themselves ‘boxing heads’ — I’ve forgotten more than they know about the game.
“Just sitting in your bedroom copying and pasting doesn’t cut it, do the interviews yourself. Other people take time away from their family to attend shows, they might have something else on but sit there through what might be a boring undercard, study every fight and then write their opinions on the fight.”
Hit rates, interviews that vie for space with promotional releases, which often carry similar quotes, and self-proclaimed greatness aside, the litmus test for a website is their standing within the game. Many leading trade figures grew up with print, an increasing number, though, are conversant with the online world — their patronage can help boost a budding site. Dave Coldwell of Coldwell Boxing recognises the power of the web as well as its flaws.
“I have a news server on my bookmarks that gives me all the stories from the websites so I pick up everything,” said Coldwell when speaking to BoxingScene. “There’s a lot of stuff that you might now know about if it wasn’t for the sites. The Internet provides a great service because there are some things that you can’t get in print. I’m a big fan of boxing news sites.”
However, Coldwell soon turned his attention to the phenomena of news briefs, often barefaced cut and pastes of Tweets or Facebook updates and in Dave’s view an online menace that has a real world impact. Some do not even give proper attribution to an article, arguing that: ‘I saw it [the news] on Twitter’, and using this as justification for their lack of acknowledgement.
This prevalent ‘Go to press’ outlook, which is partly caused by the pressure of stories breaking quickly in the modern age, leads to a tendency to push through a story without finding out if it has legs for fear of missing out. Many online, and some print, writers seem to think that ‘corroboration’ means living with a burglar. This rush to publish has caused plenty of consternation for the likes of Coldwell.
“People who don’t know the ins and outs make it obvious by the wording and it is just basically rumours because people want to get stuff out there and be the man who scooped it when there’s nothing to scoop,” he said.
“Listen, boxing deals and agreements about fights in the pipeline or contracts are very delicate, sometimes it is just not the right time to clarify or deny a rumour. I understand that people want to know and report the developments — we all want to know about news — but you have to understand that sometimes just by putting something in the public domain it means that the deal might not get done or the fight may not happen. Not clarifying a rumour doesn’t affect your lives, but putting a story out that costs a deal can make people lose out on a great deal.”
Richard Maynard is the man in charge of PR and Media over at Queensberry Promotions; he has seen a lot of changes over the past 14 years and offered his perspective on the challenges of dealing with websites from a PR perspective.
“When I started in 1999 there were only a handful of boxing websites,” recalled Maynard. “Fightnews, House of Boxing [now MaxBoxing], Secondsout, plus a few others, and I could go through them all in about twenty minutes. Now there are hundreds of websites. I would have to spend a whole day just going through them all and monitoring them — and there's also social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter — so in that respect it has made it harder.
“Every week I get emails about new boxing websites and can they be added to the mailing database. We have good relationships with the big sites, we can see the coverage that they give us; not only by just putting up a press release I've sent out in its entirety, but also doing interviews with the fighters, getting a story themselves and giving us coverage.
“We only have a limited number of press seats available in the ringside media section. I have to accommodate national/local newspapers, radio and websites so we have to carefully select the boxing websites that have helped us.”
Another aspect of Maynard’s job involves contacting sites if an article necessitates a response. “If the story is libellous then we will contact the site and ask them to take it down. Obviously, if this fails then it has to be taken further, as with newspapers and other media, and legal letters are sent by our lawyers.”
Working these issues out relies on maintaining lines of communication. For example, checking with Queensberry Promotions when a story about their organisation arises in order to break news without breaking pre-existing relationships, in my case the long-standing cooperation between Rick Reeno, Boxingscene’s Director Of Operations, and Maynard.
“I probably contact sites on a daily basis, just sending out an email or a phone call to correct something. Sometimes it is just facts that are wrong,” he said.
All in all, then, Maynard has seen a positive change in the perception of online writers, especially as scribes such as Thomas Hauser, Robert Morales and Kevin Iole ply their trade online as well as in print.
Still, a few online journalists have received a message from Maynard informing them that they have to phone Frank Warren’s Events Manager Ayling to smooth things over or correct a few things. However, far from getting a rollicking, they are more likely to have a lively, fun and get a fair hearing.
“If someone picks up the phone and asks why has this or that happened then I’ll explain it to you,” said Ayling. “I guarantee that by the end of the conversation you’ll understand it. These people have got no experience in the sport, no understanding of it, but they suddenly have a platform in this modern world. They appraise opponents based on a record and a piece of paper, instead of actually seeing the guy, and it’s very frustrating to everybody in the sport.
“The journalists now, and I hate to say this because I sound like an old fart, but when I walk down that press row at shows I look at them and think: ‘None of you guys would have lasted five minutes in the early-90s when you had proper journalists’, the guys who would go down to gyms and interview fighters. They don’t do that anymore. They just get it off the Internet and write a story.
“You growl at people through frustration. Frank will always take a press call, he’ll always listen to someone, but he gets the needle when someone writes something without picking the phone up. He’s not inaccessible — it’s pretty much impossible these days to not get a hold of someone. Sometimes the truth gets in the way of a good story.”
A few years ago, my own perspective on .coms and their writers was that they must do better, since then I’ve started to suspect that many don’t want to or simply can’t up their game. Filter out the news bits, regurgitated press releases, the same old quotes and clichés from big names in the trade and the plethora of “I think…” articles and you are left with one or two articles that are insightful — and they come once in a blue moon.
There’s sound, there’s fury, but we need a little bit of finesse. We’ve merely moved from should do to really must do better. That’s terribly slow progress in such a rapidly expanding field.
This article follows on from Boxing Monthly’s November 2011 exploration of boxing websites. You can purchase the magazine by clicking the following link: http://www.boxing-monthly.co.uk/content/1111/index.htm.
Please send news and views to neckodeemus@hotmail.co.uk or Twitter @Terryboxing.
