Demographic Changes

Originally posted by JimC Originally posted by Null unless the media support new classes Why should it be the business of the media to support new classes? The job of the media is to sell media and advertising, make a living for their staff and some money for their owners, and goodness knows that's hard enough in these days. D Zero, D one seem to have managed a certain amount of traction without being from RS, and if I'm the only person from my club who reads YY or posts on this forum somehow the new boats seem to have reached the consciousness of sailors in general just as effectively as new boats seemed to 20 years ago.

Originally posted by Dougaldog Null, There is a really good piece of advice, "be careful what you wish for". Wanting media focus 'now' can only provide the thinnest of stories, for the simple reason that none of the new boats have yet shown that they can create and then successfully occupy a niche. You've not even had a Nationals yet, so what is there for a journalist to write about. Now, as it looks as though I'm the PRO for your Nationals in May, I'll have a grandstand view of how the class is developing. But with yet more new classes expected to be hitting the water soon, what I will write is still a long way from being clear. But I can assure you of this - I will be writing about these boats when there is something to say! D

I think the problem is that media has changed, and we have to accept that. At the moment I'm putting together a final report on the 2014 Canoe Worlds which is intended as an indefinitely surviving historical record of the event for the class website and whatever succeeds that.

I've also been trying to assemble historical event reports for the last 150 years of Canoe Racing, which has given me something of a perspective.

In the 19thC, when there were relatively few major classes, small event reports appeared in the national or regional daily press, and I've managed to get together some information from on line newspaper archives. There were also annual books written with event reports and the like in, and I've got some material from there.

After WW2 the main source that I've found seems to be books, not only Uffas's well known books, but others, which include information about races. The newspapers seemed to have rather less.

By the 1950s and 1960s we have the specialist magazines, and the National papers typically have only the bare minimum. But a day spent in Yachts and Yachtings archives (thank you very much Gael for putting up with me) gave me most of the reports I needed.

But the 2014 report is a horse of another colour. OK its recent, which is part of it, but my biggest problem is not in getting material. Its in collating material from a spectacular selection of sources, written and visual, almost all amateur written and published, and distributed quite at random. There's more source material than ever before, but boy is it fragmented. Seems to me that word has come up before in this topic...

But its this new fragmented world of amateur media we have to deal with and classes and manufacturers need to adapt to. Will the circle go round and people get fed up with amateur coverage? Thing is its cheap. It costs serious money to employ proper journalists, and people no longer want to pay serious money for their media...

But the main point is that the media we have has always been changing and will always be changing. And over the time I've been involved with classes it always has has been very hard to get the coverage you think you deserve! And when it comes to event reports, which I've been doing on and off for longer than some of you have been alive, never before has there been such an amazing selection of material. When I started doing websites, before digital photography and cheap good quality cameras, well you have no idea how hard it was just to get a selection of reasonable photos if you didn't have a budget.

Edited by JimC - 04 Feb 15 at 12:10pm

JIm i agree with much of that.  However its not that people don't want to pay.  In my opinion its that the ROI is so poor.  Like i have said umpteen times now, that's not down to poor quality Journalistic skills, its more around a lack of proper communication channels.

Jim, that was an excellent insight into how things have been changing, thank you.

Dougal, you say that you views will stay with you, but I'd say that it is almost impossible to NOT write in such a way that one's opinions don't colour the writing to a certain extent. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it is necessary, or you simply end up with a very grey article that fails to ignite the views of others. What you shouldn't do, of course, is be selective with the facts, or twist them, to fit your viewpoint. That should be left to the daily newspapers.