AFL Players Association CEO Paul Marsh has highlighted the importance of the media fully understanding their role when reporting on players.
Players in the AFL have made no secret of wanting to hold the media accountable for any inaccurate reporting or ‘fake news’.
Marsh says it is vital that this practice is undertaken particularly from a mental health viewpoint in today’s world of quickly accessible digital news via social media.
“It’s an issue that has been building for a few years,” said Marsh on SEN SA Breakfast.
“What I would say to start with here is the media has a very important job to do and is critical to the success of our industry.
“We are not in any way trying to undermine the importance of the media. We do think the media has a responsibility to report fairly, accurately and responsibly.
“What we’ve seen in recent times, in the race to being first out with a news story, that a lot of this is being compromised.
“What’s probably happened, not just in the AFL industry, is everyone just walks past it. There’s inaccurate reporting consistently and people are just walking past it.
“Our players want us to hold the media to account.
“That’s not to say every time something’s written and there’s something slightly inaccurate that we’re going to make a huge deal of it, but there are big enough issues that we are going to hold the media to account.
“We’ve also been proactive. We’ve invited media from all the football states to sit down with us and work through mental health because there’s a linkage here.
“We are trying to get the media to understand the impact some of the reporting can have on the players. That’s been really positive and something we will keep rolling out in 2019.
“The impact of that will be that some media will start to understand the impact some of their writing and reporting actually has on the players and maybe we will see a small shift in the dial.”
Listen to the chat with Paul Marsh on SEN SA Breakfast below:
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