The football tv presenter based in Singapore and best known for hosting “The John Dykes show” currently available on Disney plus is particularly disappointed with the current state the online media is in.
Dykes who built his career working out in Asia working with ESPN between 1997 and 2010 believes “so much news is made off of the flimsiest of foundations.”
With years of experience in broadcasting it’s become increasingly clear to Dykes that we are in a moment of massive change in the industry and he himself has identified some of the things that are most concerning him.
“To simply report what a pundit says on television and call it a story is ludicrous.”
“It’s a sort of self-feeding cycle which a lot of the time is from someone offering an opinion that isn’t thought through, but once it’s out there it’s open to interpretation, fans will share it and it takes on a life of its own.”
“Let’s not forget the employer will have a multi-platform offering so they will say we’ll put this up on the broadcast and it’ll get picked up by the daily mail for example which in turn goes on to social media and drives traffic towards our handles.”
He added; “There is a heavy amount of manipulation in terms of certain media entity’s looking at the algorithm of what generates the most amount of engagement who then speak/make posts about it.”
Dykes, who’s worked alongside pundits such as Roy Keane, Ian Wright, and Alan Shearer questions whether the justification of this sort of behaviour is just the sheer numbers being driven in because of it.
“In the old day’s if you read the broad sheets or tabloids, you’d read the long reads.”
Currently the consumption of as many long reads is at an all-time low and in turn people are opting for a more video-based way of consuming their news.
“It’s hard to see a route back to old habits when click bait is at its highest.”
Perhaps we will see change in future, but for now John Dykes opinion stands strong in the way sports journalism is headed in the digital age.
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