By Imlisanen Jamir
On most days in Nagaland, somewhere in the state, a tournament is taking place.
It may be football on a dusty ground behind a school. It may be volleyball in a village courtyard, cricket in an open field, badminton in a community hall. The intention is usually good. These tournaments keep local grounds alive and give young players a chance to compete. Some are organised to celebrate festivals. Others mark anniversaries or memorials. Many speak of promoting sports at the grassroots.
Soon after the event, the newspapers receive the press release.
The report describes the inaugural programme. It lists the chief guest, the special guest, sometimes the guest of honour. It tells us who lit the ceremonial lamp, who spoke about discipline and youth development, and who encouraged the players to aim high.
Somewhere near the end of the report there is a line about the match.
The photographs tell a similar story. There is the chief guest at the podium. There is the chief guest handing a trophy to a player. There is the organising committee standing in a row. Occasionally there is a group photograph of the winning team holding a certificate.
What one rarely sees is the game itself.
There is almost never a player striking the ball, a goalkeeper diving, or a rally in mid-play. The sport that supposedly brought everyone together seems to have taken place outside the frame of the camera.
This is not entirely the fault of the organisers. They are not journalists, and most tournaments run on volunteer effort. Many of the people who send these reports are doing so late at night after the event has ended. In recent years the language of the press releases has even improved. Artificial intelligence tools have made it easier to produce neat sentences and polished paragraphs.
Yet better language cannot replace the absence of the event itself.
A sports report should describe the contest. Who scored. Who defended well. How the match turned. Whether the game was one-sided or tense until the final whistle. These details are what make sport interesting.
Newspapers face their own limits. In a state where tournaments take place almost daily, it is not possible to send reporters and photographers to every ground. Editors depend on organisers to send both information and photographs.
That makes the choice of photographs important.
A single action photograph tells the reader more about a match than several paragraphs about a speech. Even a slightly blurred picture of a striker attempting a shot carries more life than a perfectly arranged group portrait.
If these tournaments exist to promote sport, then the sport should be visible.
Otherwise the sports pages will continue to show the same quiet scenes: a microphone, a handshake, a row of dignitaries, and somewhere beyond the camera a match that has already disappeared.
Comments can be sent to imlisanenjamir@gmail.com
