The Great League Media Disgrace

It is time to expose the rubbish. The pathetic. The gutter trash if you will.

As season 2005 begins, let us not forget the disgrace that is the rugby league media. To all the rugby league diehards out there, this is the group of people that have successfully polluted, diluted and tarnished the image of the game for the past ten years.

I won?t use names. I refuse to increase their profile by doing so. I?ll leave the guess work up to you to figure out who I?m referring to. It is as simple as this; the current rugby league media family could easily be dressed up and put on the stage at the local comedy barn:

- A madcap woman who openly hates league - An agenda driven AM shock-jock - A foolish middle-aged geezer who has not come across the word partial - A rumour mongering small fish in a small pond - A madcap male that is clearly influenced by his connections with a certain Sydney based AFL team

It?s funny, isn?t it? I laugh. I laugh because if I wasn?t laughing than I?d quite likely be crying. These are the people that present league to the masses every week, these are the people that are more than often a new person?s first exposure to the game. These are the people that govern rugby league in 2005.

The correlation between the media and how people think has been firmly established. The comedians mentioned above have a media slanging match going that dominates the print and airwaves 24 hours of the day, 365 days of the year. No let up. No objectiveness. Pettiness? You bet. These comedians (and I hate to tarnish the image of comedians) are pathetic.

Much of the hatred stems from the super league war and the sides of the fence that people jumped on. Some went with the exciting new promotion in Super League whereas others stuck with the established firm, the Australian Rugby League. Please, has someone told them the war is over? It is almost 10 years to the day when Super League hit the press with cyclonic power. It is eight years (almost) since the two sides made up and shared a moment of passion. But someone forgot to tell these poor, poor fools. Some Japanese were still hiding out in Papua New Guinea in 1953 thinking the war was still raging. Obviously these media types hold a similar view.

But in some ways, the war has become bigger than the war. Personal hatred has entered the equation and much of the so called reporting on league has become a platform for fighting and cheap insults. As I said before, pathetic. Do they even care for the game that they are employed to report on? I doubt it, the madcap woman hates the game, the AM shock jock thinks he is the next Dangerfield and so on. If the employers were to be honest about a job description for these people, I believe it would involve the words petulant and childish.

The NRL should move on this and start issuing accreditation passes to report on the game. Take the rights away from these people and banish them to the kiddie?s pen. For ultimately, this is where they belong. Give the rumour mongering small fish a horn to blow and the foolish middle aged geezer a dummy. And while we are at it, I?m sure that the madcap male would go well with some playing blocks in hand.

I think that the passing of Peter Frilingos emphasized this point more than anything else. Chippy was a jibberer like a lot of us. But come game day, he knew how to report on the game. And he was generally professional in his dealings with the wider community. Chippy was hated by many and hated others. But he did not let it dominate his daily commentary on the game. Come kick off, you knew that Chippy was focused on the game and he clearly loved what he did. This ?new generation? don?t even follow the game in my book.

The AM shock jock can claim to have called the game since 1987, but that means squat for mine. He calls one game a weekend and comments only sparsely on league related events.

I?m sure they make good money out of it. But excuse me for not caring.

Cheers, Moffo.

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