The Pathetic Grimsby Telegraph

It’s a sad state of affairs - I used to look forward to the Telegraph dropping through my mum’s letterbox after school to read the latest Town news. The Sports Telegraph was really impressive logistically too, when you think about it. It would often drop through the door before my feet had even fully thawed from the match.

The digital age was always going to be the beginning of the end for the traditional press, but this kind of journalism, not to mention the broader ‘experience’ only pours accelerant on the flames burning it to the ground.

I’d be tempted to give the kid in question a little bit of slack; he’s relatively inexperienced to be in that role, will have been told to work to such a template and, I would imagine, is probably paid a miserly basic salary and commissioned on ad revenue generated from clicks. Hopefully he’ll learn from his mistakes and go on to have a decent career - but not writing like that.

But the Reach Group and their like are responsible for their own demise, operating in a vicious circle of declining revenues, a reduction in their ability to pay and attract decent staff, and a short-term urgency for clicks which fuels the further degradation of their offering.

There are about 80 really talented content producers in my organisation, nearly all ex-journalists or journalism graduates who have been totally alienated by the industry and its declining prospects.

But it needn’t be that way, it just requires a bit of thought and innovation. Anyone who subscribes to The Athletic will understand this.

Honestly, if the Telegraph Sports section went behind a paywall but provided regular Town related content of genuine interest and editorial quality, in a pleasant environment, I would absolutely subscribe for £5 - £10 a month. I bet loads of others would too.

I wouldn’t even mind seeing the odd ad or two either, so long as it wasn’t shoved down my throat like a Mason Greenwood cumshot, so they wouldn’t have to abandon that method entirely. In fact, I bet you could generate more ad revenue in totality that way because you’d actually be able to generate some genuine engagement from your readership.

It’ll never happen though, because at this point in their Benjamin Button life cycle, these organisations are completely bereft of people talented enough and with sufficient vision to make something like that a reality.

RIP GY Telegraph.

Grimsby Live is full of stories from outside of our area, or questions for the public to answer in the hope of generating a story.

The paper itself gives large spreads to such stories as ‘How much can I buy from B&M for a tenner?’. I struggle to see how many of them can claim to be a journalist as there is never any new news, or insight, simply weak stories, written in a sloppy and lazy manner.

With most articles that I read, I get the impression that the author hasn’t spoken to anyone directly and just lifted the story from Humberside, The Fishy, or another source.

Im not sure if im on the same wavelength here, but since the beginning of the season, i cannot get my head round Elliot Jacksons reports, topics, video,s etc for this season. I havent read so much twaddle in all my life. He is a really bad journalist and interviewer. I havent read a lot into the Max Crocombe topic in the Telegraph, i tend to step away from rubbish reporting, but i do hope that we get a new reporter for next season.

Quoted from blundellpork

With most articles that I read, I get the impression that the author hasn’t spoken to anyone directly and just lifted the story from Humberside, The Fishy, or another source.

Yes....talking of which....I was amazed to see how many pairs of trainers Efete and Sousa have between them.

This is the same paper that described a missing girls height as 4 foot 12.
It’s got no credibility and isn’t long for this world in hard copy.

I’d trust more what Tommy target has to say

Quoted from blundellpork

Grimsby Live is full of stories from outside of our area, or questions for the public to answer in the hope of generating a story.

The paper itself gives large spreads to such stories as ‘How much can I buy from B&M for a tenner?’. I struggle to see how many of them can claim to be a journalist as there is never any new news, or insight, simply weak stories, written in a sloppy and lazy manner.

With most articles that I read, I get the impression that the author hasn’t spoken to anyone directly and just lifted the story from Humberside, The Fishy, or another source.

Dave Gorman dedicated a whole episode of 'Modern Life is Goodish' to this.  He looked at local newspapers in say,  Portsmouth and Halifax and the same stories appeared in them.  Just the street name or shop name was changed.   So, a lot of stories weren't actually true. Just made up, regurgitated or recycled.

Quoted from HerveJosse

If you still buy physical newspapers and don’t do Twitter and Facebook etc then good on you if not you reap what you sow.

It’s 2022.

The only paper I've bought in the last 5-10 years is the non league football paper. Brilliant stuff in that.

Quoted from Poojah

The Sports Telegraph was really impressive logistically too, when you think about it. It would often drop through the door before my feet had even fully thawed from the match.

  

The Sports Telegraph was brilliant. Not only did you get a comprehensive report on a match that had only finished an hour or so ago, you also got a full round-up of all the local football, snooker, pool etc. I regularly used to write a report on my Sunday League teams game each week and the players always used to look forward to reading that. Plus I even used to do a report if we lost!

Unfortunately, since the Sports Telegraph went it's been downhill for the main paper ever since.