Australian cricket boycotted by international media

Posted by Evan Fell on November 9, 2007 at 12:35 PM

International news agencies did not cover the first cricket test match between Australia and Sri Lanka because of continued disputes with Cricket Australia over terms of accreditation. The match started without agreements between Cricket Australia and a coalition of media organizations which includes The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.

News Limited, Australia’s largest media company, agreed to terms following negotiations and an apology from Cricket Australia.

Cricket Australia’s general manager for public affairs, Peter Young, said that his goal on Thursday was to resolves problems with the domestic media.

The main issues concerning the media coalition were that the Cricket Association made them pay for the right to license photos of its events to editorial users and the limits placed on distributions of news and images to online news publishers.

Cricket Australia has claimed it was acting to protect its commercial value in a “changing media landscape.”

Some Australian news companies decided to accept the revised terms that Cricket Australia offered to domestic media, but international news agencies and News Limited were not able to cover the match.

A similar situation occurred before the world cup with disputes between the International Rugby Board and a coalition of international news agencies.

Source: Herald Tribune

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