As many of you will know I’ve been ‘doing the publicity’ now for the sport of karting (known these days asKartSport) for nigh on 20 years.
Though taking on a paid role ‘promoting’ any sport is seen by most journalists as a move to ‘the dark side’ of (shock, horror!) ‘PR,’ I have never been troubled by thoughts of my ‘ethics being compromised…’ Not, at least, while I still – in lean months as a contract editor/writer/media odd job man – have trouble paying the mortgage and putting food on the table for my family while still having just enough money left over to pay for the odd weekend at Hampton Downs in my drift car!
Oh yes, there have always been fellow journalists quick to go ‘all holier than thou’ over my choice to mix (usually extremely poorly paying) 8-5 Monday-to-Friday jobs on newspapers and magazines with (often much better remunerated) freelance gigs after hours or on weekends.
Yet when – if one or the other really pisses me off and – I decide to do some digging as to their own financial situation, more often than not I will find out that they are basically nothing more than dilettantes – defined as ‘a person who cultivates an area of interest, such as the arts, without real commitment or knowledge – most of the males that fall into that category here, supported by wives holding down high-paying jobs in marketing and accountancy positions with big corporates.
Blokes in other words who can ‘afford’ to have and hold such – in my humble opinion – outdated and frankly unhelpful views while at the same time bemoaning why there is ‘so little motorsport on TV or in other broadcast media’ these days.
My ‘take’ on this has always been elegantly simple; if you have the necessary skills, and you find yourself in a position where you can help, then you should; and if you can cover your costs, or even better, make a bob or two along the way, then all power to you.
It’s funny, too, you know. The ‘media’ is one of the only industries I am aware of where there is no $$$ value placed on a journo’s output.
Obviously, there is on ad space. But not on editorial. Not in a conventional sense, anyway, leaving decisions on what sport gets which spot or space on TV, radio and in particular daily newspapers. ]to a shadowy cabal of career time-servers with a worrying bent for the so-called stick ‘n ball staples and a barely concealed contempt for anything with an engine.
Because of this situation and these attitudes, I have always seen my job – as a bloke with a passion for both (sport & engines) who has created a small, niche, consultancy sort of business out of the need to ‘get publicity’ – as a fight for every column centimetre or 30s seconds of TV time.
What I am fighting against (if you like) is the combined might of professional sport and the institutional bias shown to rugby and cricket by the ‘jock straps’ still largely in charge of newsrooms around the country
Some of the time – seriously – I wonder why I bother. Other times though – and the Easter weekend just passed was one of them – I can sit back and accept that I played a small, albeit absolutely essential, part in ‘a job well done.’
For karters you see Easter here has always been synonymous with the annual National Sprint title meeting. Up until a couple of years ago it was the same across the Tasman until there the AKA set up a multi-round championship series to decide who can run the #1 plate across a number of Senior and Junior classes for the next calendar year.
Here, there seems little interest in following suit, despite the added pressure of our most important NZ titles being decided over just the one weekend – actually the one DAY this year thanks to a special thee-day event format put together by KartSport NZ Officials especially so that the meeting could still have gone ahead had the government cranked up the local COVID-19 rating to Level 2.
Despite lower than usual numbers for an annual National Sprint meeting (just over 120 cfm with a typical high at a North Island track edging up near the 180 mark) and only 8 classes contested (KZ2 and Open being the obvious omissions) the meeting certainly didn’t lack for action, excitement or – for that matter – drama.
My job – first and foremost – was to make all key local and National media aware that there was in fact a meeting on (because if you ‘assume’ your typical sports editor ‘knows’ about karts and karting like he or she might about rugby, cricket, English football etc, etc you will make an ‘ass’ out of ‘u’ and ‘me’ every time!)
Trust me. They don’t.
In saying that, recent work with former karters and now international F2 class stars-on-the-rise Liam Lawson and Marcus Armstrong appeared to pay off with both Darcy Waldegrave of radio station NewsTalkZB Sport and Gordon Findlater from TV3’s Newshub newsroom running stories on their major news bulletins over the weekend.
See: Motorsport: Next generation of Kiwi drivers hit the track at Kartsport Nationals
This sort of coverage is literally priceless because as I mentioned earlier money simply cannot buy the sort of editorial either reporter produced.
Sure, they used information from the press releases I produced before and during the event but the angle Gordon Findlater in particular chose, and story he came up with, was all his own work – including linking local hero Matt Hamilton with the success of Armstrong and two-time 2021 event title holder Jacob Douglas, not to mention digging out archival footage of the last time Lawson and Armstrong competed against each other in karts – just 6 years ago.
I – of course – could have (and on one level yes, probably should have) made the effort to attend the meeting myself.
Because I don’t have an expenses deal with KartSport NZ however, and because Jason Gutteridge of Invercargill’s The Pits media was commissioned to livestream via Facebook every session across all three days it proved much more cost effective to remain at home in Auckland and coordinate coverage from the couch in my home office.
Livestreaming is the latest ‘tool in the arsenal’ of the serious event organiser, but once again, like most things on social media it is far from perfect.
For a start like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit etc it is essentially just another ‘warts-n all’ narrow-casting tool for the cognoscenti of your sport.
Broadcasting – which is what TV, radio and newspapers do so well – it definitely is not.
It also helps immeasurably when you have a knowledgeable commentator/anchor-man like KartSport NZ’s regular ‘major event’ ‘man on the microphone,’ Mike Wilson from Hawke’s Bay. Which we did in Christchurch.
Mike was like a one-arm-paperhanger across all three days, his commentary quick, clean, and authoritative across every class race and his driver interviews in between easing interesting info out of even the most staunch and surly male teenagers – of which there is always one in a group of top drivers at a meeting like the National Sprint title one.
One thing Mike had zero control over, sadly, was the frankly appalling and totally incongruous ‘thrash metal ‘soundtrack’ someone at the Pits organisation obviously got cheap (or free) and which ‘played’ between races.
Also why have a comments section when most of the contributions border on the inane (I lost count over the three days, by way of an example, of the number of idiots who typed ‘what is this event?’ And ‘where is this track?’)
Finally, what possibly makes people who tune into a public forum like Facebook, supposedly to watch their favourite sport, then enter into a downward spiral of negativity the nadir of which is a simple statement that ‘karting’ or ‘the sport’ is ‘fucked!’
Not from where I – or anyone else with an open mind and a nice sharp axe (i.e., one not in serious need of a grind!!) in the shed back home – stand.
After the first COVID-19 Lockdown a year ago forced the KartSport Canterbury club to abandon ambitious plans to give its venerable old Carr’s Rd kart track one big last National Sprint titles send-off over the Easter weekend in 2020, its patience paid off and the club was able to ‘complete the picture’ a calendar year later.
Along the way the event was able to showcase the talents of a whole new generation of ambitious young Cantabrians (Jacob Douglas, Zach Tucker, Henry Fisher etc etc) all determined to follow in the footsteps of Marcus Armstrong, and all who have already benefitted from mentoring by locally-based internationals Matthew Hamilton (main picture) and Tiffany Chittenden.
Looks like I’ve got my work cut out for at least another 20 years. So, if you’ll excuse me, I’d better crack on!r
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