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EXCLUSIVE SS Article 6 - WPBSA attacked by Forum posters
You may remember this article from last month - Snooker Scene Article about TSF, this is the follow up article in the December edition of Snooker Scene.
October Snooker Scene’s Glasgow Notebook item, Website Journos (page 17), has brought an avalanche of criticism down on the WPBSA for its refusal to grant media accreditation and press facilities to Susan Jardine, an experienced freelance, who wanted to report the Grand Prix for TheSnookerForum.com, a valuable and widely read website (writes Clive Everton).
This refusal has been taken as an attempt to disadvantage an independent website in favour of the WPBSA’s own www (world’s worst website, some say) worldsnooker.com.
Snooker is desperate for press, radio and any other form of coverage and it is the duty of the governing body of professional snooker to encourage this.
Instead, it seems, it wants to make it as difficult as possible for snooker websites other than its own to report events, perhaps partly through a doomed and paranoid policy of trying to control the flow of information and comment.
Nor is WPBSA’s policy consistent.
At the Grand Prix, representatives of 110sport, who manage players but also have a website of longstanding, were able to come and go as they pleased; Janie Watkins of Global Snooker, another leading snooker website, was present for some of the nine days duration despite not “regularly reporting the snooker on radio or TV during the event” – the grounds of which Ms Jardine was excluded.
All websites demonstrating a serious interest in snooker should be welcomed. Snooker Forum, for instance, has 13,000 members who like its menu of news, features and – in the manner of a true forum – the opportunity it affords to exchange views.
Increasingly – and particularly outside Britain – websites are becoming the only source of daily snooker information. Even within the UK most newspapers rely on of the Press Association frequently incompetent coverage (see Snooker Scene November page 18) is derived most of the time from a combination of worldsnooker.com and a non-expert watching television in PA’s office.
One Snooker Forum member from Latvia posted: “Glad Snooker Scene wrote about this. Maybe [I’m] not surprised as World Snooker seems to take quite a lot of interesting decisions. Rather it was like an emotion when you get slapped in your face unexpectedly. As someone far away from main snooker scenes I rely on the internet.”
Terry Davidson posted his agreement from Canada: “I depend on the internet and Snooker Scene for all my snooker coverage and anything done to increase that would only benefit snooker as a whole. Oh, by the way WPBSA, I never even look at your website as I find it slow and also a biased self-promotion website with no balance.”
A New Zealand poster chimed in: “The WPBSA’s reasoning for declining access is typical of their complete inability to understand and take advantage of the vital role the internet can play in promoting and growing a sport around the world. I really think someone should start to compile a list of the ridiculous blunders the WPBSA is making and send it in a letter to all the main tour players when it comes time to vote on board members. Maybe then we would finally see a decent turnout for voting and a change for the better within the sport.”
Dantuck7 posted from Bedford: “It does show the governing body is killing the sport from within,” while Noel from Toronto said: “This is what happens when decision makers do not live in the new, real world.”
BrooklynCueless, an English junior member, wrote: “I can’t say I know enough to understand how the WPBSA operates but there have been many examples of players, fans, advertisers, sports writers etc to make it look like it’s all them v us….In regard to publicity it feels like the WPBSA has no interest in making money for the sport. To block free speech/ outside opinions isn’t going to be an improvement to their image.”
Monique posted from Brussels:”The only way to make sense of WPBSA refusing such accreditations is them trying to stay in total control at all cost, including the death of the game.”
And it is not as if worldsnooker.com is well regarded. Erwan BZH posted from Klonakilty, Ireland: “Worldsnooker.com must be one of the worst websites I have ever encountered. Externally, the design is not bad but they have hundreds of glitches and bugs that just annoy the users. They should clean their doormat before slamming the door at people well dedicated to the game”
October Snooker Scene’s Glasgow Notebook item, Website Journos (page 17), has brought an avalanche of criticism down on the WPBSA for its refusal to grant media accreditation and press facilities to Susan Jardine, an experienced freelance, who wanted to report the Grand Prix for TheSnookerForum.com, a valuable and widely read website (writes Clive Everton).
This refusal has been taken as an attempt to disadvantage an independent website in favour of the WPBSA’s own www (world’s worst website, some say) worldsnooker.com.
Snooker is desperate for press, radio and any other form of coverage and it is the duty of the governing body of professional snooker to encourage this.
Instead, it seems, it wants to make it as difficult as possible for snooker websites other than its own to report events, perhaps partly through a doomed and paranoid policy of trying to control the flow of information and comment.
Nor is WPBSA’s policy consistent.
At the Grand Prix, representatives of 110sport, who manage players but also have a website of longstanding, were able to come and go as they pleased; Janie Watkins of Global Snooker, another leading snooker website, was present for some of the nine days duration despite not “regularly reporting the snooker on radio or TV during the event” – the grounds of which Ms Jardine was excluded.
All websites demonstrating a serious interest in snooker should be welcomed. Snooker Forum, for instance, has 13,000 members who like its menu of news, features and – in the manner of a true forum – the opportunity it affords to exchange views.
Increasingly – and particularly outside Britain – websites are becoming the only source of daily snooker information. Even within the UK most newspapers rely on of the Press Association frequently incompetent coverage (see Snooker Scene November page 18) is derived most of the time from a combination of worldsnooker.com and a non-expert watching television in PA’s office.
One Snooker Forum member from Latvia posted: “Glad Snooker Scene wrote about this. Maybe [I’m] not surprised as World Snooker seems to take quite a lot of interesting decisions. Rather it was like an emotion when you get slapped in your face unexpectedly. As someone far away from main snooker scenes I rely on the internet.”
Terry Davidson posted his agreement from Canada: “I depend on the internet and Snooker Scene for all my snooker coverage and anything done to increase that would only benefit snooker as a whole. Oh, by the way WPBSA, I never even look at your website as I find it slow and also a biased self-promotion website with no balance.”
A New Zealand poster chimed in: “The WPBSA’s reasoning for declining access is typical of their complete inability to understand and take advantage of the vital role the internet can play in promoting and growing a sport around the world. I really think someone should start to compile a list of the ridiculous blunders the WPBSA is making and send it in a letter to all the main tour players when it comes time to vote on board members. Maybe then we would finally see a decent turnout for voting and a change for the better within the sport.”
Dantuck7 posted from Bedford: “It does show the governing body is killing the sport from within,” while Noel from Toronto said: “This is what happens when decision makers do not live in the new, real world.”
BrooklynCueless, an English junior member, wrote: “I can’t say I know enough to understand how the WPBSA operates but there have been many examples of players, fans, advertisers, sports writers etc to make it look like it’s all them v us….In regard to publicity it feels like the WPBSA has no interest in making money for the sport. To block free speech/ outside opinions isn’t going to be an improvement to their image.”
Monique posted from Brussels:”The only way to make sense of WPBSA refusing such accreditations is them trying to stay in total control at all cost, including the death of the game.”
And it is not as if worldsnooker.com is well regarded. Erwan BZH posted from Klonakilty, Ireland: “Worldsnooker.com must be one of the worst websites I have ever encountered. Externally, the design is not bad but they have hundreds of glitches and bugs that just annoy the users. They should clean their doormat before slamming the door at people well dedicated to the game”
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