“Total Rugby”

The Daily Telegraph today includes a supplement with the title “Total Rugby”.  I scanned the pages eagerly to see what they had written about the Welsh match against Scotland – two home nations. Why was I so disappointed to discover the small amount of coverage given to this match?

I have contacted the Daily Telegraph in the past to complain about the disproportionate amount of space given to English rugby compared to that given to other home nations. I have received no response, of course.

In this issue the England v South Africa match occupies about 4 single sides of newsprint plus the front cover is nearly all related to England. The entire centre spread is also given over to Eddie Jones and England. The South African team is given a single side. The Wales v Scotland match, on the other hand, merits only 2 sides. Of this, nearly a quarter is taken up by adverts. Ironically, one of these adverts is telling us how to win tickets to watch England at Twickenham. The other is for Quilter – the sponsors of England’s autumn internationals. The coverage of England, on the other hand, contains only two, relatively small adverts. One advert is for Quilter and the other tells us that we can follow the Rose i.e. English rugby on NOW TV.

This does not only apply to rugby. It is similar for football and other sports. When I read about the NHS it is often only at the end of an article that I realise that it is only about NHS England. Similarly articles about Education.

The Telegraph claims to be a “national” newspaper but the content is usually not only Anglo-centric but also London-centric and the other regions and countries receive considerably less coverage than, in my opinion, they should.