Friday, October 03, 2014

Bewildering

Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam, New in Chess, 2014#6, page 14

You know, if I were a leading chess journalist and I had spent several days in a small place in which, by my account, bribery and vote-selling was rampant, yet nevertheless I'd not been able to come up with one single example I could stand by - I really wouldn't go out of my way to shout about how widespread and blatant it had been.

Because it would make me look a bit useless, wouldn't it?

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would have thought a journalist would have to be cautious because of the laws of libel.

Notwithstanding the disquiet of some Canadian players as voiced on their forum, the Canadian Federation decided they hated Kasparov. Their hoped for reward is some money for FIDE rated events.

If the ECF Directors were ever tempted to do something similar, I would imagine they lack the courage to defy the likely public outcry.

RdC

ejh said...

I would have thought a journalist would have to be cautious because of the laws of libel.

Yes of course, but in that case you don't go round saying how blatant and obvious it all is, do you?

Anonymous said...

I would have thought a journalist who was aware of suspected vote-rigging, but didn't have proof that could withstand legal challenge would write that it was blatant and obvious but without naming and shaming.

It's a standard narrative that with such a narrow electorate FIDE elections have all the democracy of the Rotten Boroughs in the UK parliament prior to the Great Reform Act of 18 whatever.

With nineteen years and counting, the FIDE incumbents have had plenty of time to convince the wider chess public otherwise.

Given the amount of hostility faced by anyone daring to challenge the FIDE president, will there even be a contested election in 2018?

RdC

ejh said...

I would have thought a journalist who was aware of suspected vote-rigging, but didn't have proof that could withstand legal challenge would write that it was blatant and obvious but without naming and shaming.

Only if we're happy with shit journalism, Roger.

When I originally wrote the piece it was far longer, but I kind of assumed that readers would gather that a proper journalist, in a small place which he claims was full of bribery and vote-selling, would either produce some examples of bribery and vote-selling or not bother. Because saying "I can't find enough evidence to stand a story up" means in practice that there is no story.

It also may mean "there's no story, not because there's no wrongdoing, but because I'm too lazy and complacent to go and get the story and prefer to write about how I wandered round Tromsø looking bewildered, because those are the piss-poor standards I have been allowed to get away with for years".

(As far as the rest of your comment is concerned - do note that this is a post about journalism, not about FIDE as such, and does not constitute an invitation to rhetoric about FIDE. Mere rhetoric about FIDE is kind of the problem I'm identifying here.)

Anonymous said...

The evidence of soft bribery - how various schemes are likely to happen in the future, how budgets will be allocated - is there (or isn't there) for all to see. None of that would be taking place in Tromso you'd imagine, all done beforehand in the campaigns (probably by both sides). There doesn't appear to evidence of hard bribery - the bung in the brown envelope. It would be great if that could be scooped. (If it happened)

Overall, it's a fair observation of lazy journalism on the part of the author, but in his defence, perhaps he didn't have the column space to elaborate?

- The blue weasel

ejh said...

Well I'm too lazy to count the words in the column individually, but I reckon Dirk had about 1750-2000 to play with.

Mark Weeks said...

You cut the snippet after 'A telling example was the case of...', then wrote, 'not been able to come up with one single example'. For those who don't have the full article, it's 'bewildering'. - Mark

ejh said...

Hi Mark. Good point. Dirk goes on to talk about Gabon, but not about bribery - an "example" of got-away-with-everything, but not of the buying and selling of votes. (Hence "we're not even talking about.") It's also a story that's been about for months, thereby causing Dirk no work or effort whatsoever.