Comments on: A question of integrity

By: ChrisP

ChrisP — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 20:28:04 +0000

For what its worth I think Joe Saward’s blog is a shining example of what a ‘blog’ should be – it isn’t print journalism and that’s half the point. Joe’s print writing is different. A blog is a place where people can write their own views and perspectives, as away from any vested interests as you can get in any medium, where personal views can be expressed. I love the fact Joe isn’t afraid to speak his mind, especially to commenters (I’ve been on the receiving end myself!). The writing on Joe’s blog is insightful, and brings me so much extra analysis on F1. I often disagree with the bits that are personal opinion – but again, that’s half the point. But I always come away a bit more informed.

Conversly I’ve never read a single piece on Pitpass I’ve given a tosh about. It’s written in a faux authoritive style, that attempts to sound knowledgable to the point of being holier-than-thou, but instead reads as what it is – re-heated press-releases and leaked info written up with obvious ignorance.

By: silent bob

silent bob — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 20:23:15 +0000

Lets not forget the original article is coming from the website that published a KKK picture in jest. Says it all.

By: Cris

Cris — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 20:09:10 +0000

I agree. I notice that the offending site offers no real opportunity for people to comment on the stories. Also they failed to mention the thousand plus comments of support for the “blogger”. Shocking “journalism” from PP.

By: P.

P. — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 20:08:47 +0000

I agree with most of it. Pitpiss is a joke, and they do this only to look like they are the “independent” source of F1 reporting. The reality is that they just post crap, and that should be the end of it.

Also, as they say, you shouldn’t feed the trolls. Pitpiss is best ignored.

What I don’t agree with, however, is the part where you suggest (well, state) that real journalists have to be at the track to be real journalists.

No, that’s not true, and the opposite can be said about people that go to every race. They are not journalists just because they are on track, and F1 ‘journos’ like to glorify the idea that just because I’m on track and you are not, you are insignificant.

The truth is that there is little journalism involved in F1, an environment designed to work as a PR machine. An environment designed to offer the people who cover it all the elements to write what they have to write.

Creditable journalists don’t hang out with the people they have to write about, or play baseball with them. I’m sure you can see the implications of that.

How can people expect you to report impartially about a guy you spent the night partying with?

Imagine a political journalist hanging out and having a beer with the leaders of a party and then writing news about them. In F1, nobody is surprised about that.

Formula 1 is a mix of PR and journalism, with a bigger percentage of the former, and just because people go to a race track doesn’t make him a journalist.

By: Alan Goodfellow

Alan Goodfellow — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 21:21:04 +0000

I have to laugh at the hypocrisy of the guy in question. He drones on and on in his ‘article’ about Joe’s predictions about Force India and tries to discredit him with the blogger tag. Joe IS a blogger AND a journalist and he’s damn good at both!

Sure, Joe doesn’t pull any punches, doesn’t dress his blog up with fancy BS and gets straight to the point with his analyses. That’s what makes his blog great. Some eejits seem to take offense to it for reasons that are beyond me.

He also mentions the fact that Joe never contacted Vijay Mallya directly.

Yes, because Joe is going to spend the crumbs of time he has spare phoning a guy who doesn’t want anyone to know he is selling his team and is willing to break contractual agreements and then ask him if he is selling his team. Genius! Why didn’t anyone else think of doing that?

Isn’t this the same guy who also predicted the majority of the Formula 1 circuits would switch to IndyCar in 2014 over the new engine regs?

Whatever happened to that little nugget?

By: Jakob Schmidt

Jakob Schmidt — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 20:24:48 +0000

I have been involved in writing about F1, in Danish, for many years, and as the mayority today, as a hobby, a passion. I then decided some years back to try a blog on that interweb thing, and I changed my language to English, to get more customers basically.
I came across JS´ blog three years ago and have never, ever seen such remarkable penmanship from any journalist before or since. His integrity, his true passion, his entire person oozes professionalism. In the same span, I came across Pitpass and have read it a lot, mainly to make sure that they stopped stealing my stories, which they did in 09 on several occasions.
To target, what is easily the hardest working journalist in the business and try to dis-credit his work and integrity, unfortunately shows more about them as it does on him. JS will forever stand as a beacon of professionalism, sadly the other site surely must have lost all justification.

By: Kuhar

Kuhar — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 01:23:55 +0000

Peace out, PP. Pulled your stories from my reading list. Have a good one.

Thanks Will. Love you on Speed.

By: Nick the Hippy

Nick the Hippy — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 05:00:22 +0000

Good on you. The semantics played on the PP article are incredible. To say that some one has payed $100 million for 42.5% of a company but the owners have not sold is just logical gymnastics. I have been reading Joe’s columns and articles for close to 20 years and enjoyed them immensely. I haven’t always agreed with him but his experience has earned him the right to express them.
All I have read from the other writer has seemed to be the Bernie line on whatever news story that might have a negative impact on Bernie. He seems to claim that writing for a British newspaper makes him in someway superior to Joe. Given the revalations about British newspapers this year this would seem to be a strange point of view.
As others have noted PP allows for no comments to posted on thier website. I am deleting them from my list of F1 sites to visit.
I hope others do the same.

By: rubbergoat

rubbergoat — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 00:11:42 +0000

Great that you are sticking up for him Will. He’s been getting a lot of flak lately in his comments section and even a few people have been willing to take a pop at him on Twitter for reasons that I don’t understand or agree with.

The offending site in question is a load of rubbish and is only heard of when they write these types of articles. I barely ever go there any more and it is sad to see it on such a death spiral…

By: JZ

JZ — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 17:25:56 +0000

You’re spot on Will.

To refer to the journalist as having “little or no training in print journalism” indeed makes no sense at all.

In fact, I think the offending writer might desperately need a new media training or something: the difference in the number of Twitter followers of him, the journalist and you says it all!