TJ Walker critiques a Swindon, England football club owner’s decision to ban all traditional news media, including coverage of charity events, arguing that an in-house-only media policy is short-sighted. He contends that refusing scrutiny reduces reach and credibility with fans and that traditional media still amplifies social media presence for organizations seeking mass audiences.
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A professional football team in Swindon England has banned all news media from covering it, even its charity events. This is really taking media control and new media to a new direction and an extreme direction. Apparently the owner of a football club, that's what an American we would call a soccer team in Swindon England is so angry with unfavorable media coverage in the past, he's now essentially banning all contact with members of his team, management, coaches, players and the news media. They have decided they're just going to be their own media. They can record their own videos, they've hired a publicist to interview reporters. They put it out through their own social media networks and they're saying we don't need the traditional news media. Is this a good strategy? Certainly a case can be made. If you are so famous like Tom Cruise, you can put limitations on the media and just come out and do a press conference and control the media and say no questions. But to actually say you're not even going to talk to reporters in controlled situations, that you're going to do it all in house. I still think with as many advances as there are in social media that that's short sighted because one of the best ways to have a huge, huge profile in social media is to have the so called mainstream traditional media covering you. So I don't think this is a trend we're going to see more and more of because it's petulant and long term, it's counterproductive. You're simply going to reach many fewer people. And at some point, if you never allow yourself to scrutiny, if you never answer the tough question, you simply don't have credibility with your fans. If your coach or players botched major decisions, lost the game, lost the tournament, lost the world championship and you're not ever willing to answer a question that the typical fan is thinking of himself or herself. I just think you miss out on a lot. But in the case of Swindon, they have now banned reporters from even covering the players at charity events. Trying to help the community. I don't know how the community is supposed to know you're helping them if you ban all coverage now. Local newspapers are dying all over the US and around the world, that's one thing. But to say that no mainstream reporter, tv, radio, newspaper, other websites can talk to people in your organization, that's carrying things too far. If you are trying to reach a mass, mass audience, I mean any professional sporting organization is trying to reach the masses. You need tens of thousands of people to come to your stadiums. You need millions of people to watch your events on tv. I could understand if you were a hedge fund and you really only cared about reaching the 300 richest people in the world. I could understand the case for a no media policy, but for organizations that are really dependent on love and connection from millions of fans, I think it's short sighted.
