Forumula1.com would like to congratulate Lewis Hamilton on becoming the youngest world champion at 23-years-old following his fifth place in Sunday’s nail-biting Brazilian Grand Prix.
Editor Chris Hayes explains the rationale behind Forumula1.com’s decision to post-pone its news coverage.
Preparation is the key to good journalism. It will come as no surprise that much of the framing for tomorrow’s stories and today’s online equivalents stems from pre-prepared thinking and structure.
Here too, we must shamefully admit to dedicating the eve of the Brazilian Grand Prix to word-coinage and story-construction anticipating Hamilton’s eventual glory though we could have never have imagined just how nail-biting the finale would be.
The aim of such inventiveness, we and our colleagues would argue, is to ‘tell the story’ and report the facts and do so quickly in an appealing way.
Through words we re-represent, re-contextualise, and ‘re-tell’, but also at times distort and manipulate for financial and commercial gain. News is business after all, and articles are as much a commodity as the luxuries lining the shop window however much we fly the banner of truth-telling.
The English language is one of the most important resources we have at our disposal but it is also one of the most dangerous.
As Lewis Hamilton celebrated with his family and wallowed in his title glory, it dawned upon me that no words, however inventive and imaginative, could possibly do justice to his achievements.
As he himself told reporters after the race: “It s pretty much impossible to put into words. I m speechless. It s been such a long journey. The team did a fantastic job. I m so thrilled.â€
There is only one story to tell this afternoon, and that is how Hamilton battled against the grain criticism and controversy from just about every direction this year criticism which we the media perpetuated and cashed in on under the auspices of ‘truth-telling’ to achieve his life-long dream of winning the Formula One world championship.
And there is only one man who is placed to tell the story: Hamilton himself.
In a commercially irresponsive move, that will probably cost me my job as Editor of Forumula1.com and sever any future career hopes, news coverage will be postponed this evening save key quotes from Hamilton himself.
Without Hamilton and his peers we would not have anything to write about or generate revenue from. We make no bones of the fact that Forumula1.com is a commercial news site, but this evening we intend to bow to our rivals in order to do full justice to Hamilton’s achievements.
Instead I point you in the direction of our discussion forum, where there is lively debate and discussion taking place about Hamilton’s achievements without the mediation of this journalist.
Kind regards,
Chris Hayes
