Snack Media is just one part of this online sports media space; however, our culture as a business is to always be transparent, positive and proactive with everything that we do.
In an age when truth, trust and integrity are more valued than ever – not only in the media but across society – we must celebrate the integrity of what we do and how we do it.
We as a business have always championed trustworthy media practices to not only reinforce the honesty of our offerings, but to promote positive change across the media industry.
Prior to the global pandemic, we were actively looking to depict the current challenges facing journalism and some of the discrimination that co-exists within the industry. We partnered up with the Football Writers Association and held a series of panel events that discussed BAME journalists and their lack of representation within the industry. The BBC’s Jacquie Oatley hosted an all-female panel on the struggles they face to breakthrough what is a male dominated industry. It is astounding that diversity barriers still exist, not only in this industry, but in society as a whole.
Positive change can only happen by lifting the lid on such aspects like discrimination and challenges being faced so we can proactively look to address them within the journalism world.
Fake news and unconscious editorial bias is another huge problem within our industry and at Snack Media we have setup a series of workshops for our journalists as we stay true to our ‘Honour the Fan’ ethos and ensure that we remain a trusted source for all content. I think as a big sports publisher it is our duty to lead by example in the hope that others will follow suit. I also believe that having a huge audience means that you should use your influence and reach to amplify and promote causes, like we did with Fly the Flag, as well as partnering up with the NHS Charities Together Cup in a bid to raise £10m, whilst using our annual Football Content Awards Ceremony to raise awareness and money for the Bradley Lowery Foundation and countless others.
Honouring the fan is so important as we saw with the fallout and subsequent backlash of the proposed European Super League during the past weeks. The very nature of those owner’s actions goes against everything we believe in here at Snack Media and they will have to go a long way to repair the damage caused. In an age when truth, trust and integrity are more valued than ever – not only in the media but across society – we continue to stay true to our ‘Snacktivism’ ethos, as well as be good citizens.
It has been great to see other organisations in all sectors doing a lot of positive work throughout the past 12 months and it has been commendable to see these acts of kindness during what are tough times for us all. For all the positivity; however, we have seen racism rear its head at scale towards footballers which has led to both Premier League and EFL clubs undertaking a social media blackout over the bank holiday weekend as they look to make a stand.
We will continue to keep you updated in the coming months on all our acts of Snacktivism – our way of making small meaningful changes every single day. We support the sentiments of the boycott by the Premier League and look forward to seeing the effect it will have. To ensure that we can continue to make an incremental impact we will be live on social media platforms this weekend.
For more information please email our Head of Content, Martin Crawford, at martin@snack-media.com.
