Why I have resigned as Daily Dispatch editor
Today I resigned as editor of the Dispatch and a few minutes ago I broke the news to my team here at the paper. Since I know Twitter et al will be buzzing with news anyway I thought I must write something on my blog. I have been editor since December 2008. When I was appointed it was a dream come true and deciding to give up this job was the hardest decision I've had to make in my career.
I would have liked to have been here for another couple of years at least I've learned over the years that sometimes opportunities arise at inopportune moments. Sometimes you have to take a breath and make a leap and that's what I'm doing.
Where are the fighters for press freedom now?
The arrest of Sunday Mirror journalist Simon Wright in South Africa should have press freedom advocates in South Africa and elsewhere hopping up and down, demanding his release and the withdrawal of charges against him.
We all seem to have lost our tongues because of the World Cup and our patriotic fever. But from any angle I look at this, I can only see Wright's arrest flowing from normal journalist work.
National police commissioner Bheki Cele seems to suggest that Wright was involved in British fan Pavlos Joseph gaining entry to the English team's dressing room after a game in Cape Town. The Sunday Mirror, for which Wright works, deny this and say he was simply involved in a pursing a legitimate story.
Let us look at all of the theoretical scenarios here:
Teams with ‘foreign’ coaches never win World Cups – it’s a fact
The other day we were sitting watching a world cup game and wondering if the nationality of a team's coach had any impact on the team's performance.
It's hard to say that without appearing xenophobic but we had just witnessed a flurry of exists by teams who had non-nationals as the coach. South Africa had gone out with World Cup-winning coach Brazilian Carlos Parreira at the helm and England with Italian Fabio Capello as coach have also bitten the dust.
Our of curiosity, I went and did a little checking on the statistics and, what would you know, it turns out that no team has ever won the world cup with a foreign coach. This is an amazing fact and is consistent through every world cup final.
See this table for the full list of world cup coaches and their nationality and the winning teams.
| World Cup | Winner | Coach(nat) |
||||
| 2006 | Italy | Marcello LIPPI (ITA) | ||||
| 2002 | Brazil | Luiz Felipe SCOLARI (BRA) | ||||
| 1998 | France | Aime JACQUET (FRA) | ||||
| 1994 | Brazil | Carlos Alberto PARREIRA (BRA) | ||||
| 1990 | Germany | Franz BECKENBAUER (GER) | ||||
| 1986 | Argentina | Carlos BILARDO (ARG) | ||||
| 1982 | Italy | Enzo BEARZOT (ITA) | ||||
| 1978 | Argentina | Cesar Luis MENOTTI (ARG) | ||||
| 1974 | Germany | Helmut SCHOEN (GER) | ||||
| 1970 | Brazil | ZAGALLO (BRA) | ||||
| 1966 | England | Alf RAMSEY (ENG) | ||||
| 1962 | Brazil | Aymore MOREIRA (BRA) | ||||
| 1958 | Brazil | Vicente FEOLA (BRA) | ||||
| 1954 | Germany | Sepp HERBERGER (GER) | ||||
| 1950 | Uruguay | Juan LOPEZ (URU) | ||||
| 1938 | Italy | Vittorio POZZO (ITA) | ||||
| 1934 | ltaly | Vittorio POZZO (ITA) | ||||
| 1930 | Uruguay | Alberto SUPPICI (URU) | ||||
On this statistic we can immediately discount three teams who are still in the running from winning this world cup.
They are:
- Chile - whose coach is Argentine Marcelo Bielsa;
- Ghana - whose coach is Serbian Milovan Rajevac, and;
- Paraguay - whose coach is Argentine Gerardo Martino
I'm sure statisticians can say if this trend carries weight or whether it is simply a co-incidence. Is the date set big enough to draw a conclusion? We'll see if this holds true for the rest of the 2010 tournament. I hope not as I am holding thumbs for Ghana like everyone else in South Africa.
I haven't had time to go and see how many times a team with a foreign coach has actually made it to the finals. It would be interesting to check that out
Election coverage lessons from the Brits
There's nothing like an election to get hacks happy and there's nothing like election coverage to showcase the full power of the web as a journalism tool. As the results of the fascinating election in the UK this morning unfold, so does a great case study of how media can use the web to cover such an event.
Back home in SA we have local government elections to look forward to next year and the British election coverage gives us some good ideas on how we might shape some of our online coverage.
The Amazing Tableau Public
If you haven't come across Tableau Public yet I highly recommend you check it out. Tableau Public is a data visualisation service - with a twist. They also produce free desktop software which you can use to produce some amazing visualisations on the fly.