Mountains and Molehills
You can imagine that researching F1 Minute means I read a lot more news now than I used to. In fact, quite often, I’ll be talking to the man and he won’t know what I’m on about. Did you read that right? I’m ahead of him. Brilliant.
Anyway, I was browsing Autosport.com today, and saw the return of their traditional posts headed up Preview Quotes: #Team Name#. You know what that means, don’t you? The season is truly coming back. I was excited, I may have even whooped out loud. But then I saw that Autosport didn’t just have one post about the Previews. They’d managed to stretch it out to three posts.
I know this isn’t unusual for Autosport, we’ve certainly picked up on it in the past. I know a lot of other bloggers find their site very frustrating. I’ve been giving them the benefit of the doubt, but it’s starting to get a little bit ridiculous.
Talk about milking something for all it’s worth - three stories out of a few questions on a single press release? We get these press releases sent to us too, and other than re-printing them, I can’t think of a single story that’s worth a whole page of it’s own.
March 8th, 2008 at 12:01 pmme said:
press releases, by nature, are written by the teams press officer.
it’s not surprising there’s never a story in there. they’re generally (STR / RBR being the occasional exceptions) a load of sanitised nonsense, containing nothing like the views a driver really would like to express.
March 8th, 2008 at 3:09 pmMichael Roberts said:
Autosport is good for coverage of the big events- grand prix, spy scandals and just anything ending in -gate. If you want news worth reading then check out GrandPrix.com.
March 8th, 2008 at 4:38 pmOllie said:
The thing is, as we ‘part-time’ bloggers get better and better at it, I can see myself going to the big news sites less and less. I haven’t been to ITV in ages, and only visit Autosport just to clarify something or jog my memory on a particular event.
March 8th, 2008 at 4:40 pmme said:
true, you only ever need to hear the news once. it’s opinion and insight that’s important, and blogger’s excel on those fronts.
March 8th, 2008 at 5:57 pmopenwheel said:
I rely completely now on my information from Clive’s, Keith’s, your site and a few others (ollie’s ect..) the stories are written from info from other sources and most often then not you all try to cross reference from different sources to ensure the validity. I only on occasion look at the F1 site (only to get the time until race shot). The articles from the “official” publication sites, I find, lack the human connection that we get from the secondary sites. The more we all write we increase our overall knowledge of the sport. It is only a matter of time until some of you actually get race credentials. Just don’t go corperate and sell out. I tend to like the intamacy that our little club represents. I know that the writers’ come from all over and that is what makes these sites so entertaining. We are able to read the views of the common person from all over the globe. This is what the major sites lose in being so big (even if it is only in their minds)
March 8th, 2008 at 6:15 pmClive said:
Sell out, hey? Hmmm, what am I bid?
Only joking, honest.
March 8th, 2008 at 8:24 pmChristine said:
These sites have their place, obviously, because we all have to get our news somewhere.
You couldn’t rely on the BBC or alike, because they are usually behind (fact-checking, etc) and only do the most important topics (Lewis Hamilton related ones).
So far, I can’t actually find a replacement for Autosport, because it does have the news as it happens. It’s just the site lets itself down.
March 8th, 2008 at 9:15 pmCorey said:
I only use Sidepodcast and F1Insight along with Crash.net as Crash publish the stories fast (although they seem to sensationalise everything). I have only visited the F1 website a few times and thats because I couldn’t watch a race and also to do some research for a uni project. I visited ITV for the first time today and liked the video interviews that they had but never read a story.
I think the opinions of the blogs are much better than the news sites and I love the fact that you guys aren’t afraid to tell it like you think it is after all your research. Some sites are too busy trying to get readers with catchy headlines for the same story.
It would be great if the major bloggers could get closer to the action at the track and I don’t see anything wrong with going pro if the blogging quality remains the same.
Wow after months of reading the blog, my first post :P.
March 8th, 2008 at 9:25 pmClive said:
Doing Formula1Sport has taught me that most of the F1 news comes from one agency - GMMF1.net. F1-Live rely on it almost exclusively and Autosport use it too, with their own more extensive stuff inserted in between. GrandPrix.com tend to pick up the occasional original item but don’t spread their net wide enough to rely on them exclusively, PitPass is good for testing times, race reports, etc. but again don’t cover all the news.
Increasingly, it’s blogs that I read for news, especially F1 Fanatic and Ollie’s BlogF1. That must indicate that the blogs are catching up in the news arena while retaining their lead in opinion and comment.
March 8th, 2008 at 9:48 pmopenwheel said:
Corey,
I am glad that this subject had you come out and post. No one is right or wrong we all have opinions yours is just as important to whole as anyones. That being said I am wondering how many fans rely on this particular medium to get up to date news and ideas about F1. I hope you guys have a hits counter. You should all get together and compare notes to see how many and for how long. If you have not already. I realize that I am not the sharpest tool in the shed. I am hopeful that there are thousands that just read and do not post. But it would be interesting to know how many.
I also feel that it is only a matter of time until such web sites obtain press credentials to races. I love to read but just look at the circulation numbers for any print magazine and/or newspaper. They are dropping year after year. I will always read the paper(s) but I am afraid my children will not. so as we move to electronic media age “our” journalists will be at the forefront and that will sell to sponsor I am sure!!
March 9th, 2008 at 12:56 amme said:
nice one corey. if there was an award for ‘best first-timer comment’, i’m guessing you’d be a pretty strong candidate.
the fia unfortunately disagree. apparently personal opinions are no longer tolerated.
i suspect that’s the biggest problem the likes of autosport face these days… tow the line or face paddock expulsion.
we posted some stats a while ago, and then some more recently. but we’ve not had the time to go into more detail. it’ important stuff though and we’ll publish more when we can.
March 9th, 2008 at 12:27 pmPoppy said:
Well I just watched the ITV season preview and you might be pleased to hear that there was not a single thing on it that I hadn’t learnt from Sidepodcast over the winter. Ok, so it was exciting to hear all the engine noise and see the new cars on the telly though. I am so looking forward to next weeks Melbourne race I can’t wait!!
Just a few observations that came to mind while I was watching the show;
Cheesy graphics - wow ITV have outdone themselves particularly the F1 car coming out of the champagne bottle - just so awful it is good….
Valencia and Singapore tracks look utterly fantastic and I can’t wait to watch those races - If I had the money I’d be buying tickets to Valencia now. Really creatively designed tracks.
What have BMW done to the nose of their new car???? I presume that is some kind of aerodynamic trickery (can anyone tell me what it does?). I’m afraid it does remind me of a warthog just a little bit and Toyota’s wing mirrors on the sidepods are a little bit prehistoric armour in style. Do they do anything or is it just to scare the driver in front
?
Finally I was interested to hear a little montage of driver reactions to the rule changes particularly traction control. It ranged from veiled moaning via cautious optimism to Vettel and Rosberg who both said “cool wheel spin! That’ll be fun!” It will be interesting to see who takes to the lack of driver aids best over the season.
Ok for now and keep up the good reporting!!!
Poppy
March 9th, 2008 at 12:57 pmme said:
ha! brilliant
didn’t watch yet because we were doing the audio show, but we’ll try and catch it later.