ANY AUSTRALIAN with even a passing interest in the American basketball scene – especially those with a social media account – would’ve struggled to miss the opening of NBA free agency last week.
It’s become a Twitter event between the basketball world’s two pre-eminent journalists, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski and The Athletic’s Shams Charania.
It was much the same during the NBA Draft, where they reported which player each team was selecting many minutes before League commissioner Adam Silver announced it live on the TV coverage.
They break news with such ferocity that their individual brands are arguably bigger than the organisations they work for.
Their rivalry makes for amazing social media fodder, including the classic #Wojbomb reference and memes where one’s face is pasted on a basketballer dunking over the other (depending on who was first).
Besides the hilarity of it, there’s something else you can’t miss: the esteem the two are held in.
They are the headline acts, but fellow elite basketball reporters, such as the NY Times’ Marc Stein and Yahoo Sport’s Chris Haynes, also command respect.
Then there’s the NFL’s Woj and Shams equivalents, ESPN’s Adam Schefter and NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, who are equally revered.
It’s such an unusual sight for someone who works in the Australian Football media, a sub-section currently targeted with more disdain than possibly ever before.
The cultural differences are stark, at least among those at the top of the media food chain.
The Wojnarowskis and Charanias have direct access to the powerbrokers at basically every NBA franchise – and agreements where they contact them with news as it happens.
It’s often joked they hear a player is traded before the basketballer in question knows.
There’s also little of the rumour-mongering and blatant guessing that is rife in Australian Football coverage.
In fact, player movement reporting is largely left to an exclusive handful, while others find their niche elsewhere or piggyback on that group’s breaking news.
Where Woj and Shams are lauded, the most high-profile Australian Football journalists are often mocked, criticised and verbally slaughtered for their reporting.
Sometimes it’s fair, sometimes it’s harsh or off the mark. There are genuinely great reporters covering the Australian game.
The problem is the horse has bolted on what Australian sports journalism is and where it’s headed.
It would take significant changes for the Australian Football media to ever replicate their US counterparts.
One stumbling block is AFL clubs’ obsession with breaking news on their own website – explained as their want to directly communicate with fans – instead of developing relationships with journalists.
These relationships do exist (to an extent) in Australian Football, but too often erroneous stories are reported that reflect a lack of thoroughness, as well as the standing of the contact/s who shared the information.
There are mutual benefits to those bonds being stronger, which is something clubs sometimes fail to fully grasp, although it’s up to the journalist to earn their trust and respect.
There is also seemingly, and sadly, an acceptance among some that getting stories wrong is OK if you still break a high volume of accurate ones.
I was asked on Twitter in recent days who the AFL equivalents of Wojnarowski and Charania were.
There was only one correct answer: there isn’t any. No one breaks stories at their rate (and certainly not with their accuracy), or has such incredible and wide-ranging access to club heavyweights.
The need to make online journalism profitable – as the print version flails – led to a despised ‘click-bait’ culture, where sensationalism, hot takes and low-hanging-fruit stories took precedence.
Quantity long ago took precedence over quality, and social media’s meteoric rise has given readers’ increasing disenchantment a platform.
Australian sports media is worse for this development.
Until it changes, journalists and readers alike in this country will have to keep gazing at US sport from afar and wonder what went wrong at home.
Marc McGowan is an experienced sports journalist who’s covered Australian Football and tennis at the highest level. Now a freelancer, he worked most recently for AFL.com.au and has been published in The Herald Sun, The NT News, The Daily Telegraph, The Courier-Mail, The Australian and Australian Tennis Magazine. Marc completed an Honours degree in Communications from Monash University and has won awards for his feature writing.
Support quality journalism.
As an inkl member you can directly support the work of journalists like Marc McGowan, while also getting access to 100+ publications like Foreign Affairs, The Independent, The Economist, Financial Times and Bloomberg.
As part of our commitment to building a sustainable future for journalism, a portion of your monthly inkl membership fee will go directly to Marc for as long as you remain a subscriber.
BECOME A MEMBER
