It's amazing how F1 websites (including autosport.com this time) tend to emphasize the negative. The latest Alonso story is a perfect example. The top story headline here is "Alonso slams McLaren's treatment" and the news article is titled "Alonso: I deserved more from McLaren". On F1 Live it's "Alonso slams McLaren near end of nightmare season".

But if you actually read what he says, it's not all negative:


The news headline could have just as well been "Alonso concedes Hamilton has done a better job" or "Alonso: Hamilton deserves the championship"

Well spotted. I agree.


I only wonder about the purpose of this thread. Bashing autosport.com?

The problem with Alonso is that you'd need about 5 headlines for everything he says because he contradicts himself all the time, even over the duration of one interview.

Best comment Alonso has made in a while.

It is possible to criticize without bashing, and I guess that's what this thread is for.

As I agree with giacomo that the purpose of this thread is to criticise autosport.com (even if not only autosport.com), then I reckon it belongs in this forum and not Racing Comments. After all, it spurs a discussion on the coverage rather than motorsport topic itself.

To the point, I'd say two things.

1) There is absolutely no question in my mind that if you weigh everything Alonso says in that specific report, the headline of the story is Alonso scathingly attacks McLaren. With all due respect, that is the most important - and the most interesting - element of the story.

2) What we could have probably done is split the story into two, taking out the bit about Hamilton into a separate report. We didn't do it, not because we "tend to emphasize the negative" but because the entire block of quotes were cohesive and certainly at the time of writing, it seemed right do a single story.

There's no right or wrong here, not even a conscious decision to belittle or emphasize one thing or another.

I think people tend to attribute an agenda to news reports that are more found in the reader's eye than in the writer's mind.

You say this is a negative. To whom? I would think that Alonso fans think it's a big positive that he actually speaks his mind with such candour and ferocity. And, indeed, if we reversed the story and emphasized his compliments to Hamilton, there'd be others who would suspect that we are trying to elevate Hamilton or something.

Anyway, this is all hypothetical. We didn't elect to emphasize anything - we simply elected to report, in the proper and old fashioned method of news reporting.

How you read it, and what YOU think is more important - or, indeed, more negative - is entirely subjective and out of our control.

It might be the most important aspect to you (and you are the editor so it's your decision) but I think we have been hearing Alonso whine and attack McLaren for the last few months so it's hardly a new development. On the other hand this is the first time I have heard him say something positive about Hamilton and it was very surprising to me. Very much newsworthy in my opinion as it actually slightly changed my opinion of him.



I don't see that a problem and as a matter of fact I was surprised to find that quote in there as it was. Reading it again it seems like he was answering another question and it doesn't really flow from the previous quote about McLaren having to improve the situation.



I disagree and I think it's impossible to emphasize nothing unless your news articles were named "Driver quotes from October 6th" and you had quotes there with no other text. Even the pictures you choose for the front page create impressions.



Yes that is in my control but there was a big chance here that I could have missed that quote (which was important to me) because I almost skipped the article as I thought it was just more of the same from Alonso.

Now as far as the general "tabloid scandal" line of reporting, I certainly don't think autosport.com has that problem so please don't take this the wrong way. I'm not trying to bash, I just think this specific story should have been run differently.

I didn't say 'bash', I said 'criticise'. And I hope you found my answer respectful, even if we don't completely agree with each other.

Anyway, the severity and explictness of Alonso's attack is most certainly news and far outweighs, in my view, any concession he's made towards Hamilton. Even if the two stories were separated - there's no question in my mind which one would be the top story.

I love bashing Alonso he gets on my tits....BUT if he says things like that it is much more sporting and I'll give him full credit for it and it immediately equates some of the negative things he keeps saying. All you can ever do is stand up and applaud the guy that beats you, that is the only way to make yourself look good and gain even more respect.
Helio Castroneves schools the whole of the IRL guys in this way, always smiling always gracious in defeat but thoroughly milks the winning feeling too.

obviously you haven't paid enough attention to Alonso's comments. Or you don't understand Spanish and missed his comments about Hamilton

Alonso has always been very complementary on him.

His criticism is on Ron and all McLaren management.

I dunno, I'm pretty critical of most outlets, but I think Autosport (.com at least) are perhaps _the_ most impartial reporter of F1 news.

I think the explanation you gave only reinforces that view for me anyway. But reading the for/against arguments does give us some insight into how difficult it must be to maintain that impartiality when catering for readers (myself included) who feel particularly strongly about a specific driver or team and take rapid offence to any perception of slight.

That impartiality, it's to be commended I think, highly.

The web page of El Mundo (www.elmundo.es), a top spanish diary who has supported Alonso up and down, has exactly the same headline than Atlas.

Just my two cents.

I actually disagree - I think that the print version is more impartial and better balanced especially because opinionn and reporting are more carefully separated.

I find *.com a bit on the tabloidy side.

Great replies, bira

Is it me, or headline of this article seems to be a bit inadequate too? I almost missed it, because we hear about Alonso's 'mind games' every day.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/63372

Piquet also says that Lewis shouldn't have told that Alonso better to leave.

I noticed Autosport tends to emphasize negative on Alonso, yet they cover it for Hamilton for some reason?

They still didn't investigate and are unussually calm on that phrase Ron said about "we were racing Alonso not Raikkonen'

Is it me, or is this season marked with partisanship worst even than 1997?

You elect to see the fact that the Piquet story is headlined by a 'negative' Alonso angle but at the same time ignore the fact that the top story on the website is the Prost one, which is supportive of Alonso.

Will you bloody all give it a break? The Israeli editor in chief, the Spanish managing editor, the Australian news editor, the Italian news editor, the American photo editor, and the British GP editor - none of us give a flying hoot whether Alonso or Hamilton or Ferrari or McLaren look good or bad. We really, really don't. We don't run the news like you guys post on the forums. All we care about is what's important, what's interesting, and what's right.

And quite frankly, the best outcome I can see on Sunday is Hamilton and Alonso hitting each other at a perfect 90-degree angle, with Kimi winning the championship and announcing that he's taking the #1 with him to NASCAR.

And I think most of us reckon you lot do a pretty bloody good job, especially given the degree of conflicting passions, and not always rational ones, amongst us readers.

In keeping with my own partisanship though, I hope your suggested outcome comes true :-)

Bira

From your lips to God's ear. Deliberately left off the NASCAR bit.

Wasn't a member back in 1997, although I did lurk. Methinks things are more brainlessly partisan than they were.

Anyway, I think all this antagonism is GREAT for F1, and you guys are doing a good job covering it.

The best headline to me (i'm from Barcelona) and those in Spain who think like me, would be:

"Alonso bites his tongue and gets poisoned"

And bear in mind I had something worse in mind...


Alonso is not a great champion and thanks to his big mouth, he'll never be....

The referee has called a stop to this contest at post 16 of the very first page. The winner , by knockout due to complete pwnage of this thread and the OP , and NEW ATLAS BB CHAMPION, BIIIIIIIIIRA.

Good analysis.

Its all about the big story. The negative invariably infers controversy and "shock" and that is considered more important to the media it seems.

IMO this thread gets to the issue of autosport.com's (somewhat recently acquired) sensationalism and cavalier (dis)regard for direct quotes. The latest example is the today's newstory titled "Massa: new rules to cause more accidents." In the article the direct quote attributed to Massa is "in the event of wet races we'll have a lot more incidents." Now there's a difference between an "accident" and an "incident." According to Merriam-Webster the defintion of "accident" that seems most relevent in this context is:

"2 a: an unfortunate event resulting especially from carelessness or ignorance"

Also according to M-W an "incident" is:

"b: an accompanying minor occurrence or condition"

Why change Massa's own word to a more sensational one? Maybe I'm being a Pollyanna but I could do without this type of truth slanting sensationalism. I really don't see how it adds to the editorial credibility of autosport.com. I think it detracts.

scdecade: I don't know what he said originally in Italian, but looking at Reuters I think you're wrong here.

Massa says F1 rules will cause more accidents.

I completely don't accept your criticism in this case, sorry.

Then you've got some sloppy QA happening (if at all) on autosport.com because the article on autosport.com says "incident." Go look yourself. I look forward to your retraction and apology.

I didn't say we haven't got the word incident. I just think you're putting too much into the difference between incident and accident. In the context of what Massa was talking about, it's basically the same. And I said I don't know what the original ITALIAN word was - this is, after all, a translation from Italian. But gave you the link to the Reuters story to show you that the least sensational source of news in the world seems to have understood Massa in the same fashion as the overly sensationalised autosport.com.

You don't find it kinda ironic that in complaining about us becoming sensational, you yourself are sensationalising your complaint?

Complaining about sensationalism by being sensational? Huh? FYI - this is an internet bb and I'm an anonymous (well, you could look me up in your db) poster. Have you much experience with the internet and with bb's? Are you also going to critique my spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and grammar? I make no pretense as to being a non-sensational, unbiased journalist. Do you?

If you see no distinction between "accident" and "incident" then there doesn't seem like much point in continuing the discussion. I'm speaking about a distinction you either do not see or you reject. Accident implies a level of severity whereas incident does not.

But at this point I think we both know where I'm coming from. The editorial tone of autosport.com is what it is. I may not like it all the time but there it is. Do you think the editor(s) of The National Enquirer or whatever would deny with any veracity being deliberately sensational? Why would they? Why do you? I'm asking for more of the (many) positive qualities you, Bira, brought to the earlier rendition of autosport.com. That's hardly meant as an insult.

I stopped reading after the above. Let me know when you calmed down and got a sense of proportions. Given that I'm on a beach somewhere, partly on vacation (I just came in tonight to help with the appeal reporting), I don't particularly find my effort to reply to you worthwhile right now.

In the original quote in Italian, Massa used the word incidenti.

Now, according to the well respected Italian-English dictionary by Garzanti Linguistica, the word in its singular form incidente is defined as follows:

I added the emphasis to the bit that best reflects the type of incidenti Massa refers to. So, if anything, I take the blame for having wrongly translated incidenti into incidents rather than accidents.

The quote has now been corrected and it matches the perfectly accurate headline.
Or the truth slanting sensationalistic one, according to some

obviously ad femina arguments are the best you can do. at least i gave you the benefit of the doubt.