Gaelic Players Association

Former Fermanagh player Colm Bradley is a journalist with the Fermanagh Herald. Now on the other side of the fence, he looks at the growing media responsibilities for today’s inter-county player and how best to cope

LET’S be honest, most people look at the sports reporter as a bit of a bluffer. We get in free to games, we get to chat to the big names and we get paid to rattle out a few hundred words of a match report or an interview. Hardly rocket science you say. Easy really.

Well, I won’t lie to you, there are harder jobs. In fact, when Scottish journalist, broadcaster and writer, AG MacDonnell said of a colleague, ‘he had no qualifications for any profession so he resolved himself to try his fortune in journalism,’ he could well have been talking about many of today’s press pack, myself included.

But at the same time sports reporting is not the walk in the park many people perceive it to be. Believe it or not, it can be pressurised and it can be difficult. And each year, it seems, the market is getting more competitive. As a result the coverage of GAA has gone through the roof, especially at inter-county level. The GAA is big business, it sells papers and it draws in big viewing figures.

As a result, sports reporters up and down the country are scrambling for that interview or story that sets them and their publication apart from the rest. Naturally, by extension, the pressures which are being placed on inter-county players by the media are growing. Some players are comfortable and happy with the increased spotlight while others shy away from the glare. As amateur players they are entitled to turn down an interview request but there is growing evidence that a simple ‘no comment’ will not suffice for much longer.

Sometimes these shy sorts get a little help when managers introduce a media ban before an upcoming game. Monaghan used this tactic in the run up to their first round Ulster Championship match against Fermanagh this year. Whether it had anything to do with their limp performance is not provable, but the fact remains that their decision to cut the media off actually drew more attention onto themselves and allowed speculation to build that they were cracking under the pressure.

Predictably, when the final whistle blew, people were able to say that the media ban had a negative effect and only served to make the players more up tight. As I say, these assertions are only opinions but in my experience perception can be more important than fact when dealing with the public

Communications expert Eoghan McDermott explains that a black-out of the media is perhaps not the way to go.

“I can understand the rational of a media ban, especially if a team has come under criticism in the press but I would argue that it may not be the best policy to pursue. In my opinion, it would be better to streamline what information is coming out of the team so you can be assured that you are in control of the information.”

Irish News journalist Brendan Crossan, who has been covering Gaelic games since 1999, explains that the two teams who have been most successful during his ten seasons of reporting have always had a good relationship with the media

“Armagh and Tyrone have never been afraid to speak to the media. Both Joe Kernan and Mickey Harte built up positive relationships with the vast majority of the media. They understood that we had a job to do and that we had to do it regardless of whether they were co-operative or not.”

Brendan states, going on to elaborate on this point: “Teams that enforce a media ban are really only relinquishing any control that they have over the flow of information. The column inches will be filled regardless of whether they talk or not but if they don’t talk those inches will be filled from other sources and that is where speculation comes into play.”

Yes, speculation, that close ally of perception.

Malachy O’Rourke, Fermanagh boss, and newcomer to inter-county management, understands the power of perception and explains why a manager is wary of one wrong quote from a player.

“If an opposing player says something negative about your team, then of course it will motivate you. So from my point of view, it is important that our players don’t give those headlines and give our opposition something extra to motivate them.”

O’Rourke, however, also points out that he would not be an advocate of a media ban.

“If the fellas are comfortable talking to the press then I’m fine with that. There has to be trust between management and players and we also have to understand that the journalist has a job to do. Football is a competitive world and so is the world of newspapers. We just have to make sure nothing is said that can be used by others as motivation.”