Cyclingnews a Team Sky cheerleader?

[bjbest]

I was wondering about all of the overly enthusiastic reports of Team Sky's "domination" over the last few weeks on CyclingNews, and then I saw that Future Publishing (owner of CyclingNews) is an official partner of Sky. Conflict of interest? Seems fishy to me...

 

[auscyclefan94]

You make a good point. I think it is more to do with tham being the new big budget british team and having a lot of victories. it will settle down.

 

[bjbest]

It's amazing how much they get "Team Sky" into the headlines and onto the page. Almost no other team is mentioned, but currently "Sky" is there six times on the front page of CyclingNews.

Someone is certainly going out of their way to work Sky into the headline. Here are some recent CyclingNews headlines:

"Sky proves the goods with Henderson win"
"Sutton secures Sky's second"
"Dominant start for Sky in Qatar team time trial"

Nothing against the riders or the team -- I'm looking forward to seeing what they do this season.

 

[auscyclefan94]

It's amazing how much they get "Team Sky" into the headlines and onto the page. Almost no other team is mentioned, but currently "Sky" is there six times on the front page of CyclingNews.

Someone is certainly going out of their way to work Sky into the headline. Here are some recent CyclingNews headlines:

"Sky proves the goods with Henderson win"
"Sutton secures Sky's second"
"Dominant start for Sky in Qatar team time trial"

Nothing against the riders or the team -- I'm looking forward to seeing what they do this season.

Those headlines are there because they are winning!

 

[Hugh Januss]

Those headlines are there because they are winning!

Plus it's easy to spell.

 

[BroDeal]

It could be worse. We could be getting reports about each day of a Retirement Shack training camp. Hold it. I guess it can't be worse.

 

[lobsterboyuk]

I'd say that Sky are a valid cycling story right now, racking up the wins at a respectable rate, they deserve articles and as a complete Sky fanboy who am I to complain I think that allegations of conflict of interest are baseless, Sky are in the headlines on merit alone...

 

[karlboss]

Cyclingnews and many, many other media outlets, present the news that people want to read. This is an english language site, with a new english speaking protour team. People want to read about them, hence we receive reports.
Radioshack reports annoy me more, a training camp with more than one report? seems silly to me

 

[theyoungest]

Sky are in the headlines on merit alone...

Yeah right.

 

[Susan Westemeyer]

Moving to the appropriate sub-forum.

Susan

 

[Daniel Benson]

I think many of you have answered this question already but as for our editorial policy, we try and follow racing results and trends as best we can, so the headlines mentioned so far refer to Sky winning races.

In the last few days we've run a few more stories based on the fact that we commissioned a journalist to attend the team's camp in Valencia. However, we attended several camps and presentations this season. For example, Cervelo, Radishack, Liquigas, Garmin, BMC, Quick Step, Columbia, Lotto, SaxoBank, Milram, the list goes on. The teams camps we weren't able to attend due to timing and budget constraints were covered in some form or another, whether through stories we wrote remotely or commissioned photography.

Thanks

Daniel

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I don't think there's any issue when it comes to covering the races or anything - after all, if a team is winning or at the centre of some controversy as Sky have undoubtedly been, the site wouldn't be doing its job if it weren't reporting it.

At the same time, though, much as Marc Madiot said that FdJ have been putting riders in wind tunnels, "but we don't have to put out a press release about it", some of the Sky features have seemed a bit like overkill. Team Sky practice using TT bikes because there's a TT coming up? Is that REALLY news? What are the team going to announce next, the results of their inquest into the Pope's religious persuasion?

 

[tgsgirl]

Sky are in the headlines on merit alone...

What merit is there in "Sky gives its sprinters a work-out at training camp"? What next, "REVOLUTION: Sky train using bikes"?

 

[Moondance]

Cyclingnews and many, many other media outlets, present the news that people want to read. This is an english language site, with a new english speaking protour team. People want to read about them, hence we receive reports.
Radioshack reports annoy me more, a training camp with more than one report? seems silly to me

Aren't Radio Shack also English speaking? People want to read about them, I guess, based on your statement, so thats why they have more than one report.

 

[lobsterboyuk]

What merit is there in "Sky gives its sprinters a work-out at training camp"? What next, "REVOLUTION: Sky train using bikes"?

The merit is that this team is winning races from the off and already giving a very good account of themselves, that's why some people want to read about them in the round, not just the race stuff.

As far as I can remember there have been out of season articles in the cycling press, including articles about training camps etc, perfect for the fans who want to see their guys out on the new bikes, wearing the new jerseys.

Clearly not everybody shares my interest, that's for the editorial team to decide when enough is enough, otherwise the site goes down the pan.

As the success of Sky continues I hope we see more of the same throughout the season, it's good stuff.

Complaints about the volume of Sky articles are way wide of the mark IMO, there has been plenty written about other teams on this site, I've enjoyed reading it.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

If more of the same requires a post to tell us they use TT bikes, then I'd gladly forgo that "news" in favour of finding out about something less well-trodden. In the last three days we've had features on Barry, Portal and Gerrans. On Wednesday a feature on them using TT bikes, on Thursday a feature on them training their sprint train at camp, and on Tuesday a feature on EBH's goals in Oman, and one on Eddy Merckx's opinions of Boasson Hagen.

Apart from the TT bikes one, all seems pretty fair enough to cover. But how many other teams have been covered in that time? Was there any feature on the intent of, say, Tiago Machado or Levi Leipheimer in Portugal? And while it's nice to see features done on the likes of Barry and Portal, who often don't get the attention, the consistent number of features on the Sky guys and inconsistent features on other teams' riders leads to a feeling of resentment. Why should I care what a Team Sky domestique is doing more than a Footon domestique? I'd quite like to see something on, say, Domenico Pozzovivo's plans ahead of the Giro, or Zomegnan's opinions on teams like Colnago-CSF Inox, De Rosa and Ceramica Flaminia and their chances of being in his race.

I thought the advent of Team Sky would be a good thing. I figured mainstream coverage of the sport would probably focus on Sky a lot, but it's frustrating when even the specialist press you're used to relying on is full of coverage of Team Sky that, while mildly interesting, doesn't really say very much of anything.

Cliff's Notes version:
I'd rather read an in-depth race review or an in-depth interview than an advert for Brailsford and his 'new way' (using TT bikes? using wind tunnels? Those backwards Euros won't know what's hit 'em now Sky have brought science to the sport!) dressed up as news.

 

[ingsve]

I think part of the issue is a very common thing in journalism. You report what's available when you don't have much else to report on.

With Sky being the main sponsor of Team Sky one of their objectives much surely be to get as much interest in the team as possible among the normal public and because of this Team Sky is very open and eager to share any bit of news they have. We can't really blame them for that.

So during this part of the season when there aren't that many things happening yet a site like CN will of course run any little story they can, just like any newspaper or newsprogram etc. would do.

The thing that becomes an issue is that the stories will stick out as a sore thumb to the regular cycling audience because other team aren't as focused on being out there publicizing themselves as Sky are.

Hopefully when the season gets going and there are lots more things to report on we will see the TT stories get dropped in favor or more interesting things.

 

[bjbest]

The issue, to me anyhow, is that the owners of CyclingNews have an official partnership with Sky, and this looks like it's manifesting as working Sky into every single headline where it's even remotely possible. If Sky is paying CyclingNews to run stories... that's not journalism.

 

[Andy99]

I may have missed it, but where does it say that Future is in partnership with sky anyhow?

Surely the difference in the levels of coverage of each team points more to the fact that the respective PR departments need to pull their fingers out?!

 

[lobsterboyuk]

If more of the same requires a post to tell us they use TT bikes, then I'd gladly forgo that "news" in favour of finding out about something less well-trodden...

Those article suggestions would make interesting reading and I'd love to see them appear.

I understand the argument that some of the Sky pieces are not interesting if you're not a Sky fanboy, but I liked reading them, maybe I'm the only one, am I really that sad

 

[ingsve]

The issue, to me anyhow, is that the owners of CyclingNews have an official partnership with Sky, and this looks like it's manifesting as working Sky into every single headline where it's even remotely possible. If Sky is paying CyclingNews to run stories... that's not journalism.

Unless you have proof of that then this is nothing more than a conspiracy theory.

 

[bjbest]

The "official partnership" information isn't exactly a conspiracy theory, or a secret. How about the WikiPedia Page? Here you go (do a search on "Sky" in the document):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_plc

 

[Daniel Benson]

Im back!

The Sky info you're referring to is for a Sky TV mag and to be honest I don't even know if we still publish it but either way it's been around for a lot longer than Team Sky and to suggest it has any connection to editorial coverage on CN is way off the mark. On so many levels in fact.

Again, regarding some of the Sky content you've raised. We at CN would like to think we have our finger on the pulse when it comes to coverage and that from looking at web traffic and of course the forums we have an idea on what's popular. We don't always pick up ever story (so some of the suggestions here are useful) but generally we try and cater to the masses and provide what we think is going to be popular.

We've had a few Sky stories in the last week due to Richard Moore attending a Sky team camp. In comparison we had coverage of two radioshack camps and to give you an idea on the depth of coverage at other camps I personally attended Saxo's camp, where I interviewed Riis, Julich, Klemme, Andy S, Didier and Cancellara, and took pics of riders time trialling and playing beach volleyball. So in total, roughly the same amount of coverage from Sky and other camps.

Ta

Dan

 

[deadly wombat]

I think that the blanket coverage of 'team sky' and their riders is a welcome relief to the usual excessive coverage of the latest Lance Armstrong trivial snippet and snide Lance twitters about other riders winning races that he is no longer can.

 

[ingsve]

The "official partnership" information isn't exactly a conspiracy theory, or a secret. How about the WikiPedia Page? Here you go (do a search on "Sky" in the document):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_plc

The conspiracy part wasn't referring to if there was some connection or not but specifically about the idea that Sky was paying CN to run stories about Team Sky.