"Jonathan v.d. Sluis" <
[email protected]> wrote in
news:
[email protected]:
> The press needs to make people believe there is a good chance that this
> tour will end differently than expected, or the public will lose
> interest. This will mean less newspapers sold, less sponsor exposure,
> etc.
It's not so much interest in the end they're trying to keep interst up.
Remember, the Modern Tour is a fabulous one-week race that just happens to
play out over the course of three weeks. So pity the poor writer who has to
come up with something to say about the other two tedious weeks other than,
"What a spectacularly shitty race that was!" Truth be told, most jurnos are
secretly praying for something like the leader to crash out of the yellow
jersey during the team time trial so they have something interesting to write
about. Without the crash, coverage of that stage could be summed up
succinctly with, "Discovery won, finishing two seconds faster than CSC, and
thirty five ahead of Telekom." Everything the reader needs to know, and it
captures all the excitement of a team time trial. But try sending that back
to your editor who has is looking for 20 inches of copy from you! You'll be
on the next train home to Slough. No more tour, with the press tent and the
free buffet. And the readers would be ******, too. They want to preserve
their illusions of the TdF. So pity the poor writer for embellishing here and
there. Tomorrow things will be better. No one will be nodding off, drooling
on their keyboards, and dreaming of interesting things to write about.