Athletes have embraced social media with gusto. Where does that leave journalists?

In a world where players have unfettered access to fans through Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, it raises the question whether traditional media still has a role to play. Gordon Hunter, a rugby coach and a detective, didn't trust the media to accurately report the things he said. Sports journalists have been banned from the clubhouse, shut out of the scrum, denied access and punched in the eye. Organisations have used access as leverage. The easiest and most convenient way to pitch the game was to simplify the rules along binary lines.

Athletes have embraced social media. The rules were redrawn by the coaches, the alpha athletes and the administrators. They were drafted in the simplest way imaginable. At the heart of all rules is the one rule to rule them all: you can't trust the media, which is fair enough.

Athletes have embraced social media with gusto. Ardie Savea believes players want to control their own news and bring it out in their way.

Ardie Savea is the current holder of the Kelvin R. Tremain Memorial Trophy. He is a popular rugby player. His tweets were in response to a recent story written by Paul Cully. Culler suggests rugby should look at how it markets itself. He also says that both players and journalists dislike the short ‘standups’. The story is about Larry and Richard who wanted to spend the weekend in their dead boss”s house. It's an accurate illustration of what coverage has been reduced to in this sanitised, corporate, risk-averse professional sports world.

Athletes have embraced social media. Sportswriters are still complicit in building legends. Ardie Savea's rugby career has been catalogued, critiqued, commended, analysed, headlined, underlined, scrutinised, scripted and re-scripted. In the next few months, a talented kid will play a game of rugby somewhere and a sportswriter will be there, watching. Gordon Hunter brought his own tape recorder to press conferences. He was a journalist. It's not the case that your media is dead, watch my media instead. The player-driven media model espoused by Ardy Savee and many others is no different to GordonHunter's.