Sports Reporters

I (amongst others) received an email on Monday from Anendra Singh, our Hawkes Bay Sports Editor

"This is to notify that reporter Shane Hurndell and I are no longer in the employment of Hawke's Bay Today newspaper as of today.

We have become Covid-19 casualties, a part of the NZME initiative to cut back the number of 40 sports journalists in the group in New Zealand to a dozen."

This is reminiscent of the Fairfax cleanout a couple of years ago.  With the demise of Radio Sport as well, it would appear that Sport is held in scant regard by our media bosses, particularly in the provinces.

With little coverage of football in the media anyway this will make life a lot harder for those of us trying to promote our game, particularly here in Hawkes Bay.  Inendra was always ready to assist in many ways and he will be missed.

Well Soley, you won't be on your own here.  Same thing when Tony Coffin was given the elbow here by Fairfax.  I remember you telling me about Tony Smith, a mate of yours from Christchurch.

Meh. Taranaki hasn't had a sports reporter for years. 

Hopefully there's room for sports journalists to setup their own independent digital publication like newsroom and the spinoff have done for other parts of the press.

Fever funded section of the Spinnoff for regional sports?

A good friend of mine is a rugby scribe under the Fairfax umbrella. 

And yes he tells me a few of his female bosses openly detest not just rugby (perhaps not surprising), but all sports. Apparently sports reporting is seen as a dinosaur bastion of the white middle aged male.

If I find a newspaper that actually does football items, I choose that paper. I still buy printed papers.

I get the local Hawkes Bay Today for a low subscription rate (less than $5 per week) but with this happening I am about to cancel.  Anendra did good stuff for football and basketball, Shane was a very astute rugby writer and cover for football when Anendra was away.  With them gone, there isn't a hell of a lot that will hold my interest and would be worth reading.

There were some very good women sports writers who used to appear on In the Back of the Net.

What are you going to do now for your Rugby commentaries now that Shane is not there to give you all the info