"Lying English Pirates" report, then editorialize

One of things I've been interested in since the recent FIFA corruption debacle and its subsequent disappearance under the regular news cycle is the transformation of the impartial sports journalist into anti-FIFA crusader.

I don't think this is necessarily a negative development, and we're far off from seeing any editorializing in actual news articles, but the line is slowly blurring. At issue is the fact the same reporters entrusted with uncovering new allegations of wrongdoing—the most recent involve the grandaddy of FIFA cronyism, Joao Havelange—also write editorials.

The best example is the Guardian's David Conn. He was on the scene in Zurich and asked a few questions during the last Sepp Blatter press conference, but he's also been at the forefront in calling for FIFA to look into reform through various editorials. It seems at times his news and op-eds overlap. Sometimes the only way you can tell the news story apart from the editorial is whether you can reader comments or not.

The up-to-second Twitter feed is further helping to remove the veneer of impartiality. Rob Harris, Conn and the Times' Gabrielle Marcotti were all content to parse out the various ways the UK might voice their opposition to FIFA corruption. Again, I'm not necessarily saying this is a negative development, but  it does somewhat pay into FIFA's suspicions that the British press are out to get FIFA and have already made up their mind on the matter.

In any case, it's hard to see if any of these corruption allegations would have seen the light of day without vigilance on the part of progressive English journalists. If their motivation is their sincere belief in the fundamental corruption and unaccountability of FIFA, then so be it. Certainly continental Europe, nor the American press save for Grant Wahl (also prone to giving his own personal thoughts on the matter, to the extent he ran for FIFA prez!), have done little investigative journalism of their own. In any case, long gone are the days when journalists reported the news and the rest of us made calls to arms.