I'm also interested in a wide variety of other sports, including the Olympics and Commonwealth Games. Like you, I too want to know who is the fastest man and woman, the greatest swimmer, the marathon winner and the like.
Previously I have written in this column about field hockey a great Australian sport in which we have consistently been at the top or near the top in both men's and women's internationally.
I've been meaning to write about this for months, but last October the Kookaburras (Australian men's hockey team) and the Hockeyroos (Australian women's hockey team) won their respective International 9's Final which was held in Perth. The matches were televised on ABC television and their opponents in both matches were the Argentineans (their women are World Champions).
This interested me and come Monday morning, 21 October, I was keen to read what the sport correspondents had to say and as usual, I looked on-line two major dailies, one from Sydney and one a national on-line news provider.
The Sydney on-line news had stories on:
Del Piero calf injury; Warner century; Wanders; Stouser loses; Cooper; Sheen; Atlantic; Silence of the Man; Kangaroos; Cricket; Football; Wallabies; Horseracing; Motorsport; Jin Jeong; Boston Red Sox - but nothing on hockey.
The national on-line news site had these stories
Striking it rich; Red Sox; Ansoe; Dad and Dave; Lorenzo; Kahlefeldt; Tashle; Bards black list; Bryant; Evans tipped; Belcher Ryan; Sports want; Life's a holiday; Fanning
Williams; Surfing titles; Bite; Charges; Final chances; Latest sport news - but nothing on hockey.
We assume the sport editors determine which stories get a run. It remains a puzzle that on Monday 21 October the Kookaburras and the Hockeyroos, both winners, failed to even get a mention.
Christian publication editors
The same principle applies to Christian publications, someone has to make a selection of which material to publish. Usually it's the editors as to what gets aired and what is discarded. This is where the influence is determined.
In the sport pages, the editor determines whether to give the hockey a run or does the tennis story more likely to get the nod. Or as one recent former editor put it, my job was to fill up the space between the advertisements.
In Christian publication does this story or that story get the space? If the editor is an evangelical the decisions will tend to fall one way, if a liberal, they will fall another way. Who the editor is therefore, becomes vitally important.
Josh Hinds is a school chaplain on the Gold Coast, a family man and PSI's IT professional. Josh is an experienced writer on international sport.
Josh Hinds' previous articles may be viewed at www.pressserviceinternational.org/joshua-hinds.html