Nathan Buckley made valid point but AFL fans want greater access, writes Jon Ralph
AFTER Nathan Buckley’s lively debate on the role of the media in footy, JON RALPH writes the Collingwood coach made a valid point, but were double standards at play?
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NATHAN Buckley taking vast sums of money to criticise the media he works for was always going to get the fourth estate hot under the collar.
Buckley’s discussion on Footy Classified on Monday night made for riveting television as he condemned the use of doorstop interviews by TV journalists.
The Pies coach hates the kind of carpark doorstop interviews that see players forced to reluctantly answer questions on the run.
Although not enough to boycott programs that use that technique.
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It was hard not to see Buckley’s attack as a double standard given he has been part of the media through long associations with the Sunday Herald Sun, Channel Seven, Fox Footy and Channel Nine.
He would have made more out of the media over his career than most of the kids being told by bosses to “doorstop” players.
The very reason Footy Classified pays Buckley so much to appear is to generate provocative content in the absence of access to the stars of the game.
But Buckley is right in that the media do at times take players and coaches out of context.
When a coach gives a 20-minute interview or press conference it can be impossible to distil all he says an all-encompassing and balanced 30-second sound bite.
The media makes its share of mistakes and sometimes misrepresents quotes because it rates or sells papers.
The race to the bottom in a click-bait society is often unedifying as media companies desperately try to stay afloat.
It doesn’t mean Craig Hutchison’s central tenet — that AFL media access is ridiculously restricted — isn’t still true.
No one wins from ambulance chasing and muck raking.
Wider media access would actually benefit the fans and players most.
In the NBA every player is available in the locker room for one-on-one or group chats before every one of their 80-plus games for the season.
In the AFL the normal routine would see a coach available for a weekly press conference, selected players available for a 3-4 minute chat post-game and selected players giving radio interviews.
Bucks and @craighutchy have gone head-to-head over doorstops, and the role of the media. #9FootyClassified pic.twitter.com/AP4heh84bi
— Footy Classified (@FootyClassified) June 19, 2017
The in-depth and revealing chat that reveals a player’s character, motivations and beliefs is still a very rare thing.
Which means the best part of talking to players — finding out what makes them tick and conveying it to the fans — almost never happens.
When a controversy breaks, it runs for a week because the player involved is almost never available to discuss that subject.
When they are available, it actually helps a club move on quickly.
Case in point — Melbourne’s Tom Bugg.
He posted a provocative Instagram post about Jason Johannisen.
Post-match he spoke on 3AW radio to put it into context (he and JJ are mates).
Then he spoke to Fox Footy in a doorstop where he explained he had personality and wanted to use it.
Case closed, media moves on.
If the media was given access to all players pre or post-match the doorstop interview would disappear overnight.
Daniel Wells was smashed for six months for coming back unfit and overweight from the pre-season.
It was only when he sat down in an in-depth interview to reveal his reason — a religious pilgrimage to Israel — that it put his reason in context.
Fans want inner access.
They want to get to know their players, and not just through some club-sanctioned website.
Players with a personality and a platform use the media to their benefit because the fans actually see they aren’t boring automatons.
Patrick Dangerfield is an open book who Geelong fans have come to adore because is open and honest in his weekly appearances.
Only when the Sunday Herald Sun hired Trent Cotchin as a paid columnist did he bare his soul about himself in a column that totally altered perceptions of him.
Nick Riewoldt’s ESPN columns are riveting insights into him as a person and the torture he goes through to get his knee ready to play each week.
Yet the majority of AFL players are closed books, shut off from the fans through restrictive media policies.
How can they hope to reveal their personalities in a five-minute radio interview or 90-second website chat?
For Buckley to suggest Collingwood’s website does a thorough job of covering the club was just ridiculous.
It gives a club-sanctioned, overwhelmingly positive view of Collingwood that never asks the hard questions.
As Buckley said, it is “on our terms”.
Does he believe a club’s own website would fearlessly report the Gubby Allan controversy, the Jordan De Goey controversy, the Lachie Keeffe and Josh Thomas controversies?
Of course not.
The media are often their own enemy as they furiously compete to be first, to be right, to be heard.
But greater media access helps the players develop their brand as well as appearing as who they are — fully formed humans with weaknesses and vulnerabilities, but also wonderful personalities that deserve to be showcased.
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