A small exchange with Cricinfo
Greetings folks:
Just wanted to point out, that as usual your coverage is embarassingly England-centric - in this case concerning the current England-India test series. Check out the Surfer Blog page - 14 stories linked from English newspapers, 2 from Indian ones. Is there a quality check in play? Doesn't seem to be as every single article from English newspapers is faithfully linked to. Some balance might be appropriate so that the entire world doesn't get the impression that the only things to be written about the current test series are being penned by English journalists.
Cheers,
Samir
Andrew Miller then courteously responded:
Dear Samir
There are more recognised England newspapers than Indian ones. That's the only reason for the discrepancy.
And I wrote back:
Andrew,
Thanks for your reply. The Times of India, the Hindustan Times, the Indian Express and the Telegraph are four very prominent, well-established newspapers in India with large distributions in all major metropolitan centers. Most of India's senior cricket journalists, as well as retired cricketers (a la Mike Selvey for the Guardian or Mike Atherton for the Telegraph) write for these. These publications are as well-recognized as the Hindu.
best,
Samir
I was dying to ask what the criteria for being "recognized" was, but I figured I'd use the principle of charity and simply direct the CI folks to some Indian newspapers (I have no idea how such a large journalistic organization cannot figure out what the major newspapers in India are). Who knows, we might even see some pieces from the papers named above make it to the Surfer page.
Just wanted to point out, that as usual your coverage is embarassingly England-centric - in this case concerning the current England-India test series. Check out the Surfer Blog page - 14 stories linked from English newspapers, 2 from Indian ones. Is there a quality check in play? Doesn't seem to be as every single article from English newspapers is faithfully linked to. Some balance might be appropriate so that the entire world doesn't get the impression that the only things to be written about the current test series are being penned by English journalists.
Cheers,
Samir
Andrew Miller then courteously responded:
Dear Samir
There are more recognised England newspapers than Indian ones. That's the only reason for the discrepancy.
And I wrote back:
Andrew,
Thanks for your reply. The Times of India, the Hindustan Times, the Indian Express and the Telegraph are four very prominent, well-established newspapers in India with large distributions in all major metropolitan centers. Most of India's senior cricket journalists, as well as retired cricketers (a la Mike Selvey for the Guardian or Mike Atherton for the Telegraph) write for these. These publications are as well-recognized as the Hindu.
best,
Samir
I was dying to ask what the criteria for being "recognized" was, but I figured I'd use the principle of charity and simply direct the CI folks to some Indian newspapers (I have no idea how such a large journalistic organization cannot figure out what the major newspapers in India are). Who knows, we might even see some pieces from the papers named above make it to the Surfer page.
posted by Samir Chopra at 7:37 AM
6 Comments:
Samir,
This conversation with Andrew Miller yet again proves the medival attitude of English press towards anything Indian. And now with their "proud" home record of being unbeaten is in danger, they are trying every good and bad trick they know of to dismantle India and have scant respect for anything that is not English(read British).
Attitude of Indian media too stumps me. the esteemed journalists like Bobbili Vijay Kumar of TOI keep harping about how bad Indian team is or they keep pulling our own team s legs back, but they dont bother to write about the partial attitude of the British media. Indian media somehow turns a blind eye to the jelly beans incident and also the English sledging that ultimately has backfired them.
I didn't see any Indian newspaper writing actively about Candy gate or incidents that happened in Test from English side. All I could see was how appalling Sreesanth was.
And its bad to expect this disgusting set of writers from cricinfo like A.M and M. Williamson to show some respect for Indian.
However with the ESPN takeover of cricinfo, a slight change in the attitude should be the least thing that we should expect.
Tugga: thanks for your comment. My worry is about a particular narrative being constructed that only reflects one set of views. It might be instructive for English readers to see how the Indian media is responding to this series; CI would be the best place for them to start looking but CI filters according to their notion of "recognized" and so thats the picture they get.
i agree with tugga that the indian media and former players turned commentators fail to drum up criticism when things like shoaib's beamer happen. instead most of them like to be seen as being 'fair'... anyway, this debate prompted me to come up with a different counter to atherton, which i've posted here... wink, wink, slam, bang
Sumit: thanks for your comment. In the context of India-Pakistan cricket, most Indian writers seem to be treading on eggshells. Why? Well, each series is treated as some sort of friendship enhancing, tie-building, fence-mending sort of exercise. In this setting, an Indian journalist going ballistic on a beamer bowled by a Pakistani quick faces condemnation for being a rabble-rouser. Honestly, if Sreesanth can be censured for the shoulder-barge, then Akthar's shove (and I mean it, it was a real hand-on-the-chest shove), should have gotten him a ban.
Fair call Samir and good work for trying to haul Miller over the coals. However, Miller is as English as they get and after his article on why an Englishmen should become ICC President ahead of Pawar, I harbour no hopes for any balance in the newspapers that Cricinfo links to.
Then again, the majority of the Indian "news" publications are more interested in sensationalist non-stories, as opposed to reporting and separately commenting on the facts.
Ayush: Thanks for the comment. Speaking of English narratives, did anyone notice how almost immediately after the second test ended, there was an article on RP Singh's stint at Leicestershire? Or on how shaken up Pietersen was by the beamer? To be fair, its pretty clear from most English writings on the subject that they hold the English team roughly responsible for having kicked off the sledging shenanigans.
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