Need to change my Sunday newspaper...

[f4f3]

Although Scotland on Sunday and The Sunday Herald are good, if stodgy, reads I usually buy The Observer. Partly because I've always bought the Observer, since the days when Clive James was their TV columnist, and it was the only left-of-centre Sunday broadsheet, and partly because I like to get the UK political news in more depth than the Scottish news. Unfortunately from time-to-time I get reminded that, despite it's pretensions to being a national paper, the Observer is only an English one. Mostly this comes up in sports reporting, and mostly when England lose at something. Yesterday Wales secured a Triple Crown (beating the other home nations in rugby union's Six Nations tournament, a rare achievement) and Scotland beat England in rugby's oldest international fixture, winning the Calcutta Cup (an even rarer accomplishment - I think that was the third time they've won since the mid-Nineties). Cause for celebration for half the UK, you would think. Coverage of this was bumped off the front page of the sports section in favour of an English FA Cup match, and an English athlete trying to get back into the Olympics.
 The next two pages were basically a whine about how badly England had played, and something about an English player being dropped for having a lemonade in Dover Street on Wednesday night.  It was "A horrible game, a blot on the Six Nations",  and "An ugly game, one of the ugliest played at this wind-swept stadium". Little was said about an English forward sliding in with his knees up to hospitalise Rory Lamont, and nothing at all about one of the most horrible body checks I've ever seen in the international game. England were, indeed, ugly, slow and inept, but Scotland played out of their skins to make them look that way. Oh, and if you move on to the next two pages you can discover that Wales didn't win the triple crown, a "tame" Ireland fell short.

You could say that sport is a small matter, but since I can get coverage of UK politics in the Scottish papers, I think I'll be picking up Scotland on Sunday next week, where my country's sport will be covered, instead of England's.

Comments

[psychochicken.livejournal.com]

It's one of my major gripes with rugby of late - that so many games aren't won by a deserving side, rather lost by an undeserving one. I didn't actually see yesterday's game but having seen some of England's other performances this tournament, and the fact that once again the scoreline didn't feature a single try from either team (a trend that is really destroying any enthusiasm I have for the game) I'm forced to suspect that was the case here.

Remember papers print what their readership want to read - not what actually happened. Given that the vast majority of the Observer's readership are in England (I'd hazard a guess that the Scottish readership of the Observer is really quite pitiful) and also the fact that football is apparently the only sport we play in this country, we really shouldn't be all that surprised at any of that. The fact that most of Scotland couldn't give a shit about rugby other than one game a year doesn't get them much sympathy either I'm afraid.

Anyway I'm still tipping Wales for adding the Grand Slam to that achievement. They're the only team who've performed in this tournament as far as I can see.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Totally agree on Wales being the only team to have played this year. And also have to agree that the paper's print what their readers want to read - it just makes me sad that The Observer manages to be a UK paper in other ways (with the possible exception of giving too much coverage to who will be mayor of London) and is so pathetically inept at producing anything except an English view of sport.

You're a bit unfair on sports coverage in the Scottish Papers - agreed that the tabloids never cover anything except football, but the broadsheets are usually reliable on rugby and golf too.

[psychochicken.livejournal.com]

I don't think a true "UK" paper is viable, not least because the population is so disproportionate. Remember there are more people in Greater London than the whole of Scotland.

I'd also not take the job as editor of that paper for all the tea and china. Not even if you chucked in all their dim sum too.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Hmm, Dim Sum... yum.

That does make me feel a little better about taking Scotland on Sunday then. Though I'll be sticking with the Guardian from Monday through Saturday...

Mmm, dim sum...

[mhaithaca.livejournal.com]

You remind me of the scoffing when USA Today hit the newsstands. Everyone thought a nationwide newspaper in the US was a crazy idea, but just as people appreciate the predictability and consistency of McDonald's, people appreciate a newspaper that's the same wherever they go. Believe it or not, they achieved success despite the lack of comics in the paper!

It helps that USA Today is published by Gannett, who have small-town, city, and regional newspapers all over the country. They can pluck little bits of news coverage from everywhere, so chances are there'll be a small tidbit of news or sport from a town whose name you recognise, even if it's not your town.

But, most people still get their sport from the local papers. I doubt I'd enjoy the coverage of this weekend's hockey in any of the New Hampshire rags.

Re: Mmm, dim sum...

[anthrokeight.livejournal.com]

You know what drives me nuts about USA Today is, the fact that it's written for an average reading capability of about 4th grade. So it's available and consistent, but also... 4th grade? (or at least, so says an Accessibility Design prof here at IU)

I suppose that's not all that, since a lot of content in non-NYT papers are written at an 8th-grade reading level in the US.

f4f3, there's a huge body of anthropological literature out there on sports and their social significance. Football and rugby get a lot of attention because of their current global and past colonial significance. There's also a really famous ethnographic film on cricket that is a classic:

http://www.berkeleymedia.com/catalog/berkeleymedia/films/arts_humanities/trobriand_cricket_an_ingenious_response_to_colonialism

http://classes.yale.edu/03-04/anth500b/viewing_notes/VN_Trobriand-Cricket.htm

Seeing as how I am professionally interested in the trivial and day-to-day experiences of humanity, and how they so often are tied into bigger, out-of-the-ordinary things. "Small matters" is not the same as "unimportant matters."

This was an interesting post to read!