What I See with Peter Fiorenza: Media’s fingerprints all over sacking of West Coast coach Adam Simpson

Who would want to be an AFL coach? Well, for that matter a coach, full stop. It seems to me that the saying “there are only coaches who have been sacked or waiting to be sacked” runs true. This week’s sacking of West Coast premiership coach Adam Simpson was indeed a saga that had to be played out. It didn’t matter if it was going to be short or drawn out, it was inevitable. And this was despite reassurance after reassurance that Simpson would stay until the end of his contract with the embattled club. I reckon that once the media starts making rumbles about the tenure of coach, it is the start of a narrative that is becoming very predictable. It’s a bit like the formula (the plot) of a Hollywood movie — you sort of know what is going to happen in the end, but it’s the storyline and characters that get involved that makes that story different from another. And I believe it is the media bandwagon that enjoys writing these entertaining scripts. Now we all know that journalists are expected to report the facts. But in the modern world of selling papers or getting those desired clicks or likes to a social media post story, in my opinion this doesn’t really happen. Now I’m not saying I agree or disagree with this, merely acknowledging that it happens. Journalists and their editors select the facts, the pieces of information that are supposedly newsworthy, that will get a reaction. At the end of the day, how they achieve this is naturally subjective. It is natural that many of us feel for those that become the carnage in situations where the performance of a politician, company CEO or a high-profile sporting coach comes into question. It is the job of media to highlight situations that sections of that medium believe needs addressing. Like society in general, the media too has differences of opinion. And all journalists are certainly not tarred with the same brush. We might not like many of the things we watch, hear or read. But you know what? The fact we all continue to feed off social media means the dollars will also continue to head in that direction. This obsession with social media is creating a style of reporting we will maybe have to live with going forward. And often we are not going to like it. Peter Fiorenza hosts Sport Shed Saturdays (9am to noon) and Fiorenza on Sundays (10am to noon) on Radio MAMA