Disgrace as Witter fails to hit national headlines (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Disgrace as Witter fails to hit national headlines

6:37pm Sunday 9th September 2007

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It is high time Junior Witter began receiving the recognition his achievements deserve.
The press coverage of his latest fight, Friday night’s stunning seven-round destruction of American Vivian Harris, was pathetic.
It makes my blood boil to see newspapers like the News of the World proudly advertise 46 pages of sport and then give a miserly two columns to one of the biggest fights of the year - and then hide it 22 pages in from the back!
But at least some coverage is better than none at all, which is how the Sunday Mirror chose to cover the fight (or, rather, not to).
There was not a mention either in the Sunday Independent (though there was a large ‘fishing lines’ column to get your teeth into!) or the Observer (where stories on Chinese gymnasts and equestrian were preferred).
The Sunday Star did a little better but the Witter coverage was dwarfed by that given to a gossip story involving glamour model Michelle Marsh, sub-editors opting for a near life-size picture of a scantily-clad Marsh to sex up the 'football' article.
The Sunday People could only muster six paragraphs and I got fed up looking for the Sunday Telegraph sports section amidst umpteen other pull-outs and so gave it up as a bad job.
Compare this to the blanket coverage given to rival Ricky Hatton before and after his last victory against Jose Luis Castillo in June (which wasn’t even for a world title).
Witter was making the second defence of the WBC light-welterweight title, the most coveted belt of them all.
Prioritising stories is an important part of journalism. Unfortunately, national sports editors seem to have got their priorities all wrong.