SPORTING WRITERS

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 92, 16 October 1934, Page 16

SPORTING WRITERS

PLAYERS AS REPORTERS

JOURNALISTS COMPLAIN

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, September 14.

At the Institute of Journalists' Conference, in session at Blackpool, several speakers criticised newspapers for employing sportsmen to write reports of sporting events, in particular of cricketers who reported Test and other important matches. Mr. Parker (Yorkshire) said that "cricket reporters ol'ton had to labour against unfair competition. Cricketers might know a lot about the game, but it did not mean thut they could write better or even as good reports as trained journalists. Then? was no scarcity of qualified reporters to do tho work. It was in the interests of proprietors and editors to engage reporters instead of employing people favoured by fads. An impartial reporter was more likely to present a fair and accurate report. Mr. Eyers (Bristol) said that attention should be drawn to the fact that these sportsmen-writers were contravening their amateur status. Tho conference passed a resolution deploring the engagement of county and ex-county, cricketers and players of football, tennis, golf, and other games, to write reports of Test and other matches, as it created in the public mind an impression that the expert sporting journalist was not competent to give accurate and interesting accounts of the game. The resolution also asked .the council to draw the attention of the M.C.C., the Rugby Union, and other sport-con-trolling bodies to the abuses by men posing as amateurs and drawing higher pay indirectly from the sport in which they were engaged than they would obtain if they played as professionals.