9.11.2007
Rex Clementine reporting from the Gabba
Australia
might have won the public support in Sri Lanka by naming the Test
series played between the countries after Shane Warne and Muttiah
Muralitharan and showing genuine interest to root out racism taunts.
But there were other issues to deal with for Cricket Australia
after 21 leading media organizations boycotted the coverage of
the Test Match.
Leading
news agencies Reuters, AFP and AP didn’t send their representatives
for the match coverage or photo coverage while News Limited, the
largest media organization in Australia and the publishers of
‘The Australian’, ‘Daily Telegraph’, ‘Courier
Mail’ and ‘Herald Sun’ newspapers also boycotted
the Test Match.
The
dispute arose over the accreditation for the series, where media
organization have been required to meet Cricket Australia’s
(CA) demands on license fees and ownership of images. It’s
reported that the Agencies were required to pay 10,000 AU $ each
for the coverage forcing their withdrawal.
Issuing
a statement, AFP Chairman Pierre Louette said "It is most
regrettable that we are unable to provide our usual comprehensive
coverage of cricket due to CA’s refusal to extend reasonable
accreditation terms to international agencies. The accreditation
terms imposed by CA make it impossible for news agencies to achieve
the impartial and independent coverage that is our core mission,"
Louette said.
After
the first day’s boycott, negotiations were on to resolve
the matter.
CA
was also forced to issue an apology to News Limited, after its
Public Affairs Manger Peter Young criticized the leading media
organization. ‘’(News Ltd) are keen to take as much
money out of cricket as possible to put into their shareholders
pockets and we’re keen to keep as much money in cricket
as possible to put into the development of the game.’’
He
had also mentiond that the money that cricket deserved ended up
in the pocket of media mogul Rupert Mordoch. Mordock owns News
Limited and several other international media organisations. Later
CA issued an apology saying that it regretted the ‘inappropriate
comment’.
There
were further controversy after the two scheduled umpires Steve
Bucknor and Aleem Dar couldn’t make it to Brisbane. Authorities
said it was due to ‘visa issues’. Last minute replacements
were flown in form of South African Rudi Koertzen and the inexperienced
New Zealander Tony Hill.
Courtesy - The Island
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