Formula One news reporting

[Rob W]

Is it just me or is F1 news getting worse by the year?

The standard of story-writing is laughable at best - most stories are basically founded on baseless innuendo and what-if scenarios seemingly aimed at the lowest common denominator or to embarrass people as opposed to actually reporting something which has happened or can be verified in any way. And this is on some of the most popular sites (such as Planet-F1 etc).

I know this topic has been broadly mentioned many times within other threads but I thought it warranted it's own one. The reason intended not just to bitch - but to ponder why it is the case.

Practically every day there is a bogus or pointless news item. I can picture daily group make-----up session each morning, then post it on the net and flip a coin to see who will be today's 'insider' to make up some random comments to support their story.

[tahadar]

i dunno what website you prefer, but I read autosport.com (both in print and in electronic format) and its better than ever. I dont really bother with most other websites apart from F1technical because there is some good insight here as well.

[Callum]

I read autosport too but i get bored with articles titled with things like..

"webber hoping he can improve"
"hamilton hopes new parts will bring speed"
"stephano domiclicali believes reliabilty is essential"
"ferrari have a red car"

(i made those up)

some of the things they say are just SO obvious, i wonder if the team have a quota and just put random stuff up on the website because some of it really isnt news.

[czt]

i dunno what website you prefer, but I read autosport.com (both in print and in electronic format) and its better than ever. I dont really bother with most other websites apart from F1technical because there is some good insight here as well.

Autosport (like many F1 sites) seem to drag out the smallest story. One favourite trick is posting a Q&A with a driver or team member, then writing a "story" around a couple of quotes from the Q&A that adds no more information to that which has already been provided.

My favourites are grandprix.com and pitpass.com as they actually seem to put some effort into what they publish, rather than masses of regurgitated press releases.

[nae]

lowest common denominator

thats the way we are heading in all news far less such technical items as F1

its where the revenues are (apparently) which isnt the point but hey ho
it was good while it lasted

[FLC]

I've been subscribed to autosport.com for a few years now and in my opinion it is getting worse by the year. I completely agree with Callum about the quality of their articles (and titles) and the same applies for their photo gallery; I guess you could consider photos as news. Anyway, they are never enough in quantity and only rarely do you get any decent ones, not to mention in time.
I was just thinking about writing them a letter, if only I could find the time. I think it would be great if they had used their resources and good name to get some stories like the ones you get on James Allen's site from time to time, for example, which are able to make you feel like you are there with the teams, in the hotels or on the grid. It wouldn't hurt to have some more articles from Scarbs and maybe a more efficient design for the site or just a remake. "my autosport" is a nice feature but in 2009 it should be better.

All in all you have to read through at least 4-5 sites to get a good picture of what is happening and sometimes the best information (yes, news information) is found in forums, when you can identify someone as a good reliable source.

[mx_tifoso]

"webber hoping he can improve"
"hamilton hopes new parts will bring speed"
"stephano domiclicali believes reliabilty is essential"

Thats not BS, you have to create a story title that fits the news content. All while trying to make one that is different from the rest of the news sites.

Not meant to offend, but autosport does go too far by creating a story or two for every Q+A. If there's already an interview is it really necessary to create stories with that same content ? It's just a way to make it look like their is more news than there really is, like at the moment where it's pretty much dead news-wise.

[DaveKillens]

Time changes everything. Many, many years ago when I was a teen, the only way to get any information or news on Formula One was via the printed media. Newspaper articles (usually just the recap and results, though), and magazines. I probably learned over 80% about racing from car magazines. And of course, the news was always old. heck, if it was printed on a magazine, the delay was at least three months.
Spring forward to today, we have instant everything. Something major occurs on the other side of the earth, I will hear about it almost immediately. So that places news services in the position of being very aggressive in their business. It's almost impossible to get the scoop, and even then, you would be first by just a few seconds. So what do they do? Invent news, or spice up boring stuff to make it into print. Geez, a pop star is seen shopping for something in a drug store, and the world is led to believe they are either a) pregnant, or b) in drug therapy.
The organizations that deliver the news have become irresponsible, because they can. And they need to be in order to survive.
The internet, although a great boon to mankind, has some terrible drawbacks. And one drawback is that anyone, regardless of their credentials, can make a voice and be heard by someone, somewhere.

[nae]

One of the specific problems with F1 news reportage is the accreditation issue
if you want to be ring side you have to satisfy the FIA to get your accreditation

and a lot of reporters pay a lot of money to report the 'news' and cannot afford to
rock the boat as they have a lot to loose, it is a full time job following the circus
around and which also has its perks. cant be a bad life

if you loose your ticket for the circus nobody will hire you, it matters little if its good coverage, factually correct or speculation.

press release journalism is the current trend and in my view F1 news reporting suffers becuase of it (and it could be argued main stream news suffers much worse)

[Rob W]

This is the sort of news...

'McLaren could lose their sponsors' (on planetf1 - I don't even want to link to it to give them the benefit of an inbound link)

While it has already been mentioned that the team could yet lose star driver Lewis Hamilton, McLaren's sponsorship deals are also on the line.

"Most sponsors can handle the odd scandal, but they hate to be associated with a team who have been publicly named cheats," an industry source told the Daily Mail.

Mentioned by who?.. Oh.. the last retard to write a story with completely made-up crap.

Nowhere in the entire article does it credit any piece of information to anyone. I'd bet money they just thought through the process of what could happen should McLaren be censured or punished harshly and then just made up some stuff which fitted with it. And they always seem to make up stuff which is particularly antagonistic - or intended to be.

I mean, the only mentions I've seen anywhere about Hamilton looking elsewhere for a drive is from articles which quote no-one and offer nothing at all to back up the story. I.e. they just make this crap up - plain and simple.

(Either that or Max is be paying these people to make crap up about McLaren )

[FLC]

That's OK. And than J.Stewart will advise Ross Brawn not to fire Barichello over Hamilton, which will create the next headline...

[kilcoo316]

Is it just me or is F1 news getting worse by the year?

The standard of all the British media is shockinginly low.


I remember reading a few years back the french version of the F1 magazine...

A proper, no-holds barred, read on F1.


None of this "cooking with ____"

or "snowboarding with ____"

or similar bullsh!t you find in F1racing.


It also didn't have that smarmy little sh!t Windsor "writing" in it.

[Rob W]

Jesus H Christ... it just gets worse.. Planet-F1

'Ron Dennis is reportedly set to announce his complete retirement from McLaren later today as the CEO falls on the sword to save his team ahead of their upcoming hearing....'

How on earth does the CEO quitting have anything at all to do with the team lying to the stewards or mitigating any punishment for it? Unless of course you subscribe to the notion that the FIA does everything it can to go after Ron Dennis (in which case this will make perfect sense ).

It goes on..

'It is understood that Hamilton Snr and Mosley have been in contact over the last few days, with both keen to see Dennis leave the sport'

What. The. F***?

'McLaren, though, are expected to spin Dennis' retirement from F1 as the CEO rather wanting to switch his attention to the road-car side of the company.'

Um. Newsflash muppets - that's basically what he already did many months ago (in theory) - relinquishing his F1 team role to Whitmarsh.

It's as if these journalists basically do nothing other than try to make the worst case scenario up, basically to aggravate any situation.

[Steven]

The standard of all the British media is shockinginly low.

Thank god we're not British

... autosport does go too far by creating a story or two for every Q+A. If there's already an interview is it really necessary to create stories with that same content ? It's just a way to make it look like their is more news than there really is, like at the moment where it's pretty much dead news-wise.

I agree, while Autosport do have their own interviews, they indeed make different news items out of them to attract people, something you won't find here at F1T

GPupdate is also quite interesting in that perspective Often they create stories, and then recycle them one week later, posting them as if there's anything new in them.
I also remember them copying an article from here about a parliament decision about the French GP, 4 days after we published it. The only problem was that by that time there had already been a second voting round with the opposite result

[xpensive]

My problem is that most of the "news" these days are little more than press-releases from a team or its spin-doctor.