At this time of year, whether you are out shopping or stuck in elevators, you are constantly reminded by Paul Young that "it's Christmas time, and there's no need to be afraid…"
It's time to let it all go. Relax, deck the halls with boughs of holly, drink a little, damage relations with Europe even more and then eat turkey; snore on couches, watch bad movies and do all those things that one avoids for the rest of the year, such as eating Brussel sprouts and mince pies, and then playing charades and board games with the family.
And thank goodness for that…
But on to more serious matters that I am afraid of (Paul Young notwithstanding), as are many other journalists and photographers who also earn their living reporting on motorsport to fans the world over. The whole basis of reporting events and delivering the latest motorsport news week in, week out is that we can always read a variety of reports and many different opinions whenever we go online or open a magazine.
Or can we…?
Over the last year, a single US based motorsport website has set about acquiring as many media companies, titles and websites as possible, including such venerable names as Autosport magazine, F1 Racing, Autosport.com, Motors TV, Motorsport-Total.com, Formel1.de, Sutton Images and most recently the widely respected Dutch website GPUpdate.net! This latest acquisition took the market by surprise prompting some of the more humorous hacks in the paddock to ask their Twitter followers to raise their hands if they hadn’t yet been bought out by the said company…
So why am I, and some of my colleagues in the F1 paddock being so critical of this practice; is it sour grapes that we haven’t cashed in on the latest money train? No, most certainly not! We are proud to be independent which allows us to be fair minded and deliver our readers unbiased impartial reporting without being beholden to anything but the truth!
Can a company that owns so many titles and now has tentacles within the ownership of some of the FIA’s premier series around the world plus having its chairman also performing the role of team boss for one of the grid’s leading Formula 1 teams ever present an unbiased view to the fans? No, I don’t believe they can and, as part of a constantly shrinking group of independents, we now face a bleak future of receiving news second hand, as relationships within their circle now favour their own outlets to break news stories and contrived scoops!
So where will it all end? I really don’t know but sadly there will come a time where this company will just be too many people doing the same job which will inevitably result in many fine and respected journalists being let go as it will no longer be economical to employ them and that will be a very sad day for our profession. Some will hopefully join what’s left of the independent media companies but most will be lost to motorsport reporting for good and that’s where the fans will lose out too. Not being able to access their favourite columns now written en mass for multiple titles with a word or two changed here and there is a poor substitute for journalism!
As we come to the end of the year and Motorsport Monday approaches its fifth birthday in February, we can look back with pride to show the industry how we have thrived by presenting an independent viewpoint each and every week. We now have three healthy editions of the magazine in the US, the USA, and South Africa with two more editions well advanced in the planning stages. We reach nearly 200,000 readers on a busy week and now also have a dynamic 24/7 manned motorsport website MotorsportWeek.com to provide fans with up-to-date motorsport news between publications.
What I can say is that we will stay proudly independent and for this I can but only thank our brilliant team of journalists and photographers, some of who are regarded as the best in their fields. Thank you Joe, James, Jerry, David, Victoria, Ryan, Phillip, Amanda, Nick, Andy, Graham, Russell, Bonny, Nadia, Daniel and Chris for all your brilliant words, photos and design this year. Thank you too, to Luke and Jack who were part of our little team and have moved on to prestigious positions in the pursuit of furthering their already successful writing careers.
In closing, may I wish all our readers a very Merry Christmas and a truly Happy New Year.
Graham Harris
Motorsport Monday
F1 Editor-in-Chief
This was originally posted in issue 246 of Motorsport Monday. Click here to read the full magazine, for free!