Nationalist V's Leinster Lier

Got the two papers this moring in the shop. Amazed, just amazed with the poor quality of the leinster lier.

I was more interested in the intermediate final as i was doing a bit of work for one of the sides.
7 mistakes i counted on the intermediate write up alone. From naming wrong players in pictures, on the sideline and in the general write up.

Also 5 pages on the senior final compared to 1 on the Intermediate.

The nationalsit had a much more balanced write up and more in tune with the game. The journo writing it was obviously well focused on the game and not 1 mistake did i count.

The Leinster Leader has been poor and amateurish for some time now, it is error-ridden and some of the journalism is very basic and top-heavy with cliches and sound-bites. for many of Kildare's championship games some of the details were incorrect and the photo images of players were wrongly titled.

not normally that bad though

i wouldnt buy either paper for there top articles but would buy both the week after a round of champ and i found this year that the nationalist missed a few champ games but the leader was excellent in this aspect of the battle and won my vote

I'd have to say The Leader would be my favourite. Found The Nationalist didn't cover as much as The Leader. Good GAA coverage in The Leader.... Tommy Callaghan is as good as you'll get... Honest and to the point.....

i like both of them. But must agree the leader has had bad mistakes recently, however thats only mild compared to the Liffer Champion, where there has always been so many errors. Mixing up of county players names and even scores from club games are often wrong in the liffey champion.

There seems to be a good few mistakes in the Leader alright but sure people were saying KFM announced that Sarsfields had won the final the other day a few times and even said it again on the Monday morning

the leinster leader for me . only paper that reports on county boards meetings every month

leader for me to,,,,liffey champion isnt bad aswell!!!!

Big Full Back wrote:

I'd have to say The Leader would be my favourite. Found The Nationalist didn't cover as much as The Leader. Good GAA coverage in The Leader.... Tommy Callaghan is as good as you'll get... Honest and to the point.....

Welcome Tommy... oh no, this thread is going to be trimmed!

Lily4Life wrote:

but sure people were saying KFM announced that Sarsfields had won the final the other day a few times and even said it again on the Monday morning

We doubt that Lily4Life considering the coverage given to the County Finals over the weekend.... Maybe what people heard was the text Stephen Keogh read out from a person who was watching "a breakfast show" on a "national tv station" that continually said throughout the morning that Sarsfields had won....

Yep, Aertel had Sarsfields as winning for a good while.

JME wrote:

Yep, Aertel had Sarsfields as winning for a good while.

They were winning for a good while, up untill the 60th odd minute

I'll get my coat ...

RTE Sunday Sport had Sars as winning too. Maybe we got it wrong???

Tommy Callaghan is possible the worst reporter i could pick out of the 2 papers.

And thats without taking into account the massive difference of opinion i would have with his articles. His reports are error ridin and lack detail. And when he does that colum after the match he uses the same style every single time of short minimalist sentences.

I'd say when he's writing his report he sits somewhere and chats away to people around him, its the only way he could miss so much of the action.

Never really buy the Leader or Nationalist but the Liffey Champion is bloody awful! Frequently mixes up players in both the articles and the pictures. I reckon I could write a better report than some of them w/o even being at the match. Most of the match reports contain the scorers and the result and the remainder is filled in with a shit load of cliches!!

That said, they don't exactly hire the cream of the crop. I remember a year or two ago, our club PRO who was about 19 and had no journalistic experience and it was his reports that were appearing in the champion each week

fone wrote:

the leinster leader for me . only paper that reports on county boards meetings every month

i've seen coverage in the nationalist from county board meetings in the past few months

isnt that usually what it is though the pro writes in the report from their own club games the local paper usually gives them a quick edit until the championship comes around if the pro isnt up to it they usually dont have reports then

There are so many games with only so many reporters. I presume they don't have a huge staff so are relying on Club representatives to send in a report. Thus if there is not a lot of detail in the original draft then they can't add any themselves as they were not at it.

For the record I gave up long ago buying daily papers and only buy the nationalist and Leader when they come out once a week. Everything else is online so you already know it long before the papers print it up.

Have to say the GAA coverage on this weeks leader is very poor. They have a two page speed on the Hurling Championship and that's it. Not one report on the JTB V RT replay nor one minor report from any fixture last Tues. The Nationalist is a bit better and has a report or two. Can't believe how the two local papers have really given up on the club scene lately. Not along for information but as a minor player it's nice to see your name in the paper if you've played well. You get more reports on here than you do in the papers.

I only buy the Nationalist after a championship weekend to read the reports, any other time it's just a waste of money.

If our county board can't be bothered putting the weekly fixtures up on their own official web site how can you expect our local media to afford much space in their weekly publications.

Remember once reading an article in the Liffey Lier after one of our club games. There was a picture of me just after scoring a point. The caption said "Wrong name watches his shot go wide"....Raging!!! 
Done with the local papers after that!

The county board has to take a lot of the blame. The coverage throughout the year is poor because the club PROs don't step up but they're getting no direction anymore. It used to be the case, when Syl Merrins and then Kathleen O'Neill were County PRO, that there'd be a meeting at the start of the year for all club PROs where they would go through what each should do in terms of reports and results and how the winning club or the home club if it's a draw should do a report and that you should still do a report on a championship game as the papers mightn't have enough people to go to every game.

I still have the 3 page letter Syl sent out in 2001 when the meeting was cancelled because of foot and mouth. Has anything similar been done in the last 7 or 8 years?

Of course I do agree that the quality of the Leader is way down on what it used to be.

To throw in my opinion I think the Nationalist is an excellent paper and always gives an accurate assessment on games. With county games in particular its stats can give a great insight into how the game was won and lost.

The Leinster Leader on the other hand is imo rubbish and littered with mistakes. The journalism is also dated and not at all up to speed with how modern football. It lacks the detail and accuracy of the nationalist.