Monday afternoon and I thought I'd take a look at the Turkish Daily News to check out their take on Genclerbirligi Oftas' loss to Besiktas on Saturday.
I was slightly confused when I saw the headline: "A weekend all about relegation battles". I had to read the first few paragraphs before I realised they were reporting on Sunday's matches. I then checked to see that it was actually Monday.
But true... for the first time in my memory the TDN gave reports on matches a day after they happened, rather than two days later. Not only that, the story actually focused on Anatolian teams and not the usual diet of Istanbul giants.
Amazing stuff. Only hassle is that if they keep this up I will have to find another newspaper to rubbish.
So step forward our old mate Okan Udo Bassey at Today's Zaman.
Udo as usual concentrated on Saturday's games but at least the paper managed to get the scores in from yesterday's games.
Which brings us to The New Anatolian, the third English-language newspaper in Turkey, which didn't even bother to report on Saturday's matches, let alone yesterday's.
Well done TDN!
EDIT (Slightly later on Monday afternoon): I have just re-read the TDN piece and it sounded very familiar to stuff I used to write when I worked as Udo's lackey back in the mid-1990s.
Basically, Udo would hand me list of results, who scored when etc and ask me to make a story. So, lets deconstruct a bit of the TDN story.
Let's say that the only facts you know are the table positions, the results, the goal scorers and when they scored them. Do you think you could come up with the following paragraph?
"The Gaziantepspor-Gençlerbirliği match was dramatic, with Gençlerbirliği taking the lead twice, but only settling for a point after the final gasp strike by Ali Cansun. Gençlerbirliği, 16th with 10 points, missed the opportunity to close down on its opponent, who has 15 points."
Still as I said before, at least we got to read it on Monday and not tomorrow.
The Round Ball in Ankara! Dedicated to football lovers in Ankara (Except for those who follow Osmanlispor)
Dear OzKanka, They are waking up!
ReplyDeleteThey want to keep up with you and me!....
What do you think?....
They still don't have news about WC2010!..
Regards,
Ahmet
Dear 'The round ball in Ankara' contributors and readers;
ReplyDeleteFirst of all I would like to thank you because this blog is actually the only feedback we get from the readers of our sport pages.
As some of you know, the Turkish Daily News has an early deadline, 6 p.m. currently, and the sports pages have even an earlier deadline being the stepchildren of the paper. We are doing our best to use stories daily, but sometimes it is not possible, like the case of 2010 World Cup qualifying groups draw.
Being a Gençlerbirliği fan plus a Bursaspor supporter myself, I love to use stories that have nothing to do with the so-called Big Three, and we are doing our best to include Anatolian teams in our pages.
We appreciate all kinds of criticism, positive and negative, especially those slaps on the face that keep us on track.
Best regards,
Özgür Korkmaz
TDN Editor
ozgur.korkmaz@tdn.com.tr
I always argued that the sports pages should have a late deadline...
ReplyDeleteI understand the constraints in regards to getting the paper to bed but with the TDN now on the internet, that only just started when Spine and I worked there many moons ago, I see no reason why Ozgur should get to finish early on a Sunday afternoon :)
Dear TDN Editor, how about doing a story once a week on the Ankara Big Two matches. Make the Ankara TDN `Ankara Friendly` ! I, for one, would be more inclined to buy your newspaper if you did !
ReplyDeleteYou could also do what Hurriyet are doing and name an Ankara player of the week, and then go one further and interview him.
We here in The Round Ball are always willing to advise our journalist colleagues on how we can introduce improvements !!
All the best from Eski Kanka Jim