Everybody loves Raymond

And nobody loves us. Because when we say this, people dismiss it as poppycock. We're also kept out of the one form of journalism we so thoroughly enjoy. So we'll let someone with a little more authority, a lot more style and a bigger share of voice say it. Over the past few years, sports broadcasting, from athletics to football, has become less journalistically driven and increasingly populated by former sports stars. Framed by entertainment rather than journalistic values and with too many vested interests involved, football coverage on television tends now to be driven by soft opinion rather than hard analysis. Television often appears to see its role as promoting sport, rather than reporting, investigating and analysing. The BBC was particularly guilty of this in its coverage from Germany, where ex-players in particular were singularly unable - or unwilling - to cut through the media-generated hyperbole surrounding the England team and examine the realities of a limited and under-performing team. Shamelessly Extracted without permission from Raymond Boyle's take in The Guardian on the world of commercial sport. Note: Raymond Boyle is a professor at the Media Research Institute at Stirling University and the author of Sports Journalism: Context and Issues