Blake Welton: CEO of London Football Scene on ethical standards in Sports Journalism.
Sports journalist, Blake Welton has been a football writer since 2008, beginning his career covering Huddersfield Town before expanding his horizons to work freelance for Sky Sports and many other publications including the Daily Mirror. Blake juggles his freelance work with his role as founder and CEO of London Football Scene which is an unfunded and independent online website covering Football League and Non-League clubs across the capital.
This has given him wide experience in all facets of being a sportswriter, so we began by getting his thoughts on the ethical dilemmas that the industry and he himself has faced.
Blake Welton thought that at its core,
“Journalism is a business, and the true ethics of a journalist is knowing what is right and wrong, reporting fairly and accurately but without bias. It gets a bit murky and when you mix it you know, its politics and business”.
Blake feels like that the higher up the football pyramid the journalist goes then the more restrictive and controlled it is. The PR’s and the press departments want to control the situation and the narrative, and the media corporations are according to Blake,
“Worried about their internal and external stakeholders, relationships with third parties, with clubs, players, agents and to try and navigate that and be ethical, upstanding and a professional journalist is very, very difficult. Whether its print, digital, new media, audio, podcast, or radio it is always entwined with external stakeholders.”
This ethical issue has always been there he thought even back to Charles Dickens and the Victorian Era, and it won’t go away instantly.
Blake had experience of this when working with Sky, when the sports media giant ‘watered down’ a story he wrote about head concussion. Blake explained that there was,
“One player that was coming out saying that there was a lack of aftercare for footballers, a disregard for player welfare and this player said there is scientific evidence that concussion links with dementia. The players quotes were in there and the PFA (Players Football Association) got in touch with Sky, and they didn’t like the story. It would have looked bad on the PFA as they are the players union, and it was supposed to support and look after the players so it kind of indirectly shades on what they were doing and not doing.”
Nick Lustig the assistant news editor at Sky asked for that story to be toned down because the PFA who is a big partner with Sky were concerned that it would reflect badly on them.
The editors watered down the story and Blake believes that it hinders writers producing accurate and meaningful stories.
“They would rather sort of sit on the fence or not offend anyone and try to keep everyone happy, but unfortunately in this industry you can try and please some people some of the time, but you can’t please everyone all the time. A decent story is going to annoy or upset someone,” he said.
The problem seems to be that commercial interests, partnerships and other outside links effect editorial decisions and Blake says,
“Its very frustrating from a journalist’s point of view who wants to do open, honest, unbiased, fair, accurate reporting.”
It’s one of the reasons he founded the London Football Scene because as it is run on a volunteer and contributory basis it avoids commercial or political influence.
Blake does feel however that some publications in the media landscape show disregard for the people they are reporting on.
“There are sharks who will really grab a story, really get their teeth into it and really don’t care. You know, the collateral damage to people,” he said.
Dealing with Press Agents at clubs throw up other ethical dilemmas with journalists treading a fine line between gaining access and maintaining good relations with their PR teams. Blake has experienced this first hand.
“It’s just a closed house and the Press Agents and PRs are gatekeepers, and they don’t want you to break a story before they are ready to announce it. Everything must be on their terms, in their time, when they are happy, when it’s signed off and they don’t want anything against the grain or not the right narrative. This is because they have their own revenue streams such as YouTube, their website and member paid tv,” he said.
Blake faced a two-fold dilemma when The London Football Scene decided to publish a piece condemning Millwall fans booing when players bent the knee in solidarity against racism and the club’s slow response to the issue.
“It took 24 hours for the club to put out a statement and it was literally two lines saying we acknowledge this has happened and an internal investigation is ongoing. So, we attacked the fans and we attacked the club,” he explained.
Blake risked losing his relationship with Millwall when its Press Agent belatedly contacted him.
“Why have you put that out? We are really disappointed because you more than any other news outlet knows us,” Blake remembers hearing.
This for Blake was a moment to be ethically strong.
“Because you know it was right. I have repeatedly tried to give you the right to respond and reply. You haven’t. You have really dropped the ball on this. We have covered your anti-knife campaigns. We have said how great run you are, how financially prudent and how you try to tackle racism. We could have had a conversation and collaboration,” Blake had explained.
Blake offers advise on how to build relationships with Press Officers by saying,
‘You try and constantly make an effort, but just if you get anything, it’s a brucy bonus and don’t rely on them as your soul source’, he said.
Although the club did not like the article no lasting damage was done with Blake believing that Millwall have a very good press officer. This left the issue that by attacking the Millwall fans for booing, the article was also attacking its readership. Blake explained his dilemma.
“You are literally throwing your readership under a bus, but we felt it was so vocal (the booing) and no one was speaking out with an informed opinion. If you don’t like it and you don’t like London Football Scene holding you to account, well, don’t read it and you’re not the sort of readership we want,” he said.
The rise of digital online journalism is an ethical minefield.
“The accountability is less, and the digital laws are less stringent than press. Its kind of the wild west of information, which is often fake news, embellished or simply not true,” Blake said.
It is vital while doing the research you can compensate against what is said or written by looking at it yourself and checking it and verifying the information, where it’s come from, the source,” he continued.
The key for Blake in navigating these ethical dilemmas is to,
‘Constantly look to be creative with your content and look at different avenues, look at different areas of trying to find contacts, find people that are willing to speak, and it goes back in some respects to very basic kinds of research journalism’.
Blake Welton will continue to be a voice of reason in the ethical minefield that being a sports journalist is in a fast-changing media landscape.
