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I wrote a letter to the SMH explaining that Greg Growden is a tool box and should be sacked. I received a very interesting reply.
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Dear James,
Recently you contacted ReaderLink. The following outlines The Herald's response:
Dear Mr Dewing,
Thank you for your email which related to articles written by Greg Growden, the Herald's chief rugby writer. Your comments have been forwarded to Mr Growden.
We value all feedback, even negative feedback such as yours, because it forces us to closely examine our newspaper and, hopefully, improve it in the future. However, while I understand that you may be distressed about what you perceive as unwarranted attacks on a sport you obviously love, none of our journalists are paid to provide uncritical comment.
The Australian Rugby Union is an organisation administering a sport which, at
its upper levels, is fully professional. Many of the participants at both the
administrative and playing level are extremely well paid, with a large part of
that income coming from people like you who purchase tickets to matches, watch the games on free to air or pay television and spend up on official merchandise.
Many of those people are also readers of The Sydney Morning Herald and we
believe they deserve an honest appraisal of the sport's progress, both on and off the field, by people such as Mr Growden who are steeped in the rugby
tradition and who have spent much of their career closely involved with the
game.
Mr Growden has been quick to praise the recent turnaround in the Wallabies' fortunes but would be failing in his duty to the reading public were he to ignore any internal machinations which could impact on the code's ability to perform at an optimum level.
Without Mr Growden's recent investigations we would not have known about the ructions within the Wallaby coaching ranks, about John O'Neill's fears for the viability of the new Australian Rugby Championship, about the lessening of around $20 million from the ARU's reserves or about the possibility that major sponsors Qantas and Suncorp could have been lost to the game.
While this might not make pretty reading, I believe it to be necessary if the
code's followers are to be fully informed.
The media has many purposes, one of which is to shine a light into dark places. To do that requires a brave and well-informed journalist, and I believe Mr Growden answers that description.
Please do not hesitate to contact me should you wish to further discuss this or any other matter.
Regards
Sam North
Managing Editor
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The phrases "honest appraisal" and "brave and well-informed journalist" almost made me choke.
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Originally Posted by jargan83
