Talking Points is a regular area of the Darts World Website and involves important or smaller pieces of news or those stories which may need longer exposure than the 24hrs cycle usually allows. Unusually we featured just one specific ‘Talking Point’ in DWE 16:
PDC chief executive Matt Porter has hit out at the sudden rise in ‘clickbait’ headlines within the coverage of darts this year.
The game has seen an almost unprecedented level of media attention off the back of Luke Littler’s run to the final of the PDC World Darts Championship in January.
In an interview with the Weekly Dartscast, the PDC boss expressed his disappointment at the spate of misleading coverage from a portion of the media:
“The standard on ‘clickbait’ darts since the World Championships, whether it’s Luke Littler, Noa-Lynn (van Leuven), Michael van Gerwen, Luke Humphries is disgusting,” Porter said.
“There’s a lot of people out there calling themselves journalists who need to start looking at themselves, and particularly when they’re writing for well-established titles.
“For clarity, I’m not talking about the people who cover darts week in and week out. They understand the sport, know the sport and respect the sport and write high-quality material.
“A lot of people have decided to capitalise on darts’ new-found position in society and churn out stuff that is offensive, almost always inaccurate and misleading. It’s really not good enough.
“Somebody can start up their own website and churn out any rubbish, but when it’s a major national newspaper it’s just not good enough.”
Porter also revealed that the PDC are taking advice from other organisations in relation to their own coverage of Noa-Lynn van Leuven.
Last year, van Leuven became the first transgender player to compete in the Women’s World Matchplay, and followed that up, in 2024, with titles on the Challenge Tour and Women’s Series.
The PDC elected to remove the option to comment on recent social media posts that reported on van Leuven’s success on the oche, a stance Porter says they are monitoring.
“Whether it was right or not to mute the comments, it’s something we’re reviewing,” he said.
“We’re taking advice from people who are perhaps operating in that space more regularly than we are, but it was a decision we took at the time and one we supported.”
—–ENDS—–
Interview: Alex Moss – Weekly Dartscast
Image: L Lustig / PDC
Editor’s Note: We Couldn’t Agree More!
From Darts Word Extra 16 (April 2024)
