Sport post- Twitter in sport

Just recently I've noticed that it is becoming more and more common for journalists to use Twitter as a way of gaining comments from sports men and women after sporting events rather than getting an interview. After last weeks Arsenal Vs Manchester United match a BBC report on the match did not contain a single comment from any member of the playing or coaching staff through an interview after the match, instead the reporter had waited until Wayne Rooney, Michael Owen and other players had commented via Twitter to gain any reaction to the match.

Personally I feel that getting an interview after a match is much better journalism. The reporter can ask the questions they want to ask and the audience want answered, rather than relying on Twitter comments to appear, before gaining any sort of response to key events. Is this due to a breakdown in trust and communication between the press and proffesional sports players? Sir Alex Ferguson no longer talks to BBC sport and Michael Owen recently had an interesting conversation on Twitter with journalist Oliver Holt; where Owen described the breakdown of trust between journalists and sports players. Owen felt that sports players are so often misrepresented and therefore are reluctant to speak to journalists, who he feels are only looking for that newsbreaking story rather than representing the person they are interviewing. This in turn results in the lack of personal interviews we see with players and coaches on todays game, and the reliance on Twitter for sports news.