Channel 9 reporter Danny Weidler has thrown Wests Tigers CEO Grant Mayer under a bus in a repot filed this evening, claiming Mayer needed to explain why a video on the Wests Tigers web site had been edited to remove praise that Robbie Farah had given to under pressure coach Michael Potter.
The inference is that the Wests Tigers removed Farah’s praise for Potter because they do not want the supporter base seeing a player backing the coach.
A few years ago I was afforded the opportunity of visiting the company that runs NRL.com. It was a real eye opening experience.
The people there were great. They loved the game, they had a passion to provide supporters with what they wanted, and they did the very best they possibly could within restraints placed on them through the general issues a large web site faces that has to work with an administration and 16 clubs.
One of the things that shocked me was the way that data was managed on the site.
For instance, a picture that is posted on NRL.com is received by the site as a massive file. That file is then cut down to a fraction of it’s original file size. It is then edited to try to and look as good as possible despite the fact the file size has been cut back so far.
It was amazing to see how they were able to keep an image looking so good that was such a small file size. They do this to keep the site running fast. It’s something maybe I should do more often with my own web site!
Now the Wests Tigers web site may be run independently, I don’t know. They are part of the system however and many of the practices the NRL site uses would also be in play for the Wests Tigers web site.
So if the Wests Tigers web site received a club video that ran for say 10 minutes, they may have parameters that say they only post 3 minutes of a press conference. They would do things like this based on pure numbers. Shorter videos would get more views. People don’t want to sit through 10 minutes of raw footage of a press conference. They want to get the best parts of the press conference and get back to watching porn!
Videos posted on a clubs official web site would be edited for time restraints, then compressed to reduce the time it takes to load them. They would have audio and visual markers they try and hit with these videos…and all of this would be put in place for pure performance reasons. It is all to keep the web site running fast.
So much gets posted on a clubs official web site every day. It is silly to think that the CEO is watching over this process on and hour to hour basis and handing down edicts on how content is handled by the people running a site.
In short, a CEO has much more important things to be doing with his or her time.
I can understand how it looks back when you compare the raw footage of the press conference with the edited version that appears on the Wests Tigers web site. I have no doubt however that the editing involved was done purely to provide Wests Tigers supporters with the same sort of coverage of press conferences they have received all year.
In short, I think this is a storm in a teacup. Yes the video was edited. Every single video posted on every single NRL club web site is edited. During that process some things are cut out. It is all done for the benefit of supporters.
I think the people that run the Wests Tigers web site are probably horrified that this has been mentioned on the news. They are just doing their job. Like you and I, they love the game. In an idea would they would love to post raw, unedited footage of every press conference. Unfortunately they can’t. They need to make decisions on what stays and what goes. In this case, some footage that included Robbie Farah’s praise of his coach got the chop.
It’s a none story, but I felt as though it was something that needed addressed.
Just so you know, I have never worked for the NRL or any club web site.
