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Knowledge Mushohwe Correspondent
It’s the Sunday afternoon Harare soccer fans have been waiting for. Dynamos versus Caps United will always be eagerly anticipated by both the Press and the public. When the match eventually kicks off in front of thousands of fans, two dozen or more photojournalists representing all of Zimbabwe’s print media strategically take their places around the pitch to record images on behalf of the newspaper’s readers.

Each photojournalist records dozens of images but only one, or two of them get used and stored by the newspaper.

What happens to the rest of the photographs?

They may be relevant for the story of that weekend or even for other stories later in the season but chances are slim that they may be published by the newspaper or any other outlet.

Print media outlets are therefore not being as efficient as they should with sports photography.

Readers notice the overuse of the same old photographs by newspapers.

Using the one Callisto Pasuwa photograph depicting the former Dynamos coach standing near the touchline and holding his chin becomes monotonous for the reader and may also give the impression that the newspaper is recycling the same picture and story day in, day out.

Sports fans demand that photographs should be timely and give the impression of movement.

Movement reminds fans of the action they see on the field and seeing their favourite stars in full throttle adds value to what the newspaper carries.

Conceptual photographs, pictures that suggest the same meaning as the story whose meaning they supplement are vital for news- papers.

Conceptual photographs include a picture of a coach looking at his watch or waving his hand when it has been announced that he has been relieved of his duties, or an image of a dejected player sitting on the ground when the story of the day says his injury will rule him out of action for a long time.

But regardless of how conceptual they are, there is no substitute for timeliness.

Sports teams routinely change the design, colour and shape of their kits every season.

Players too tend to change their physical appearance regularly.

Tottenham Hotspur’s Togolese striker Emmanuel Adebayor, for example, had an afro during one season, and wore dreadlocks during the next.

He later cut the dreadlocks off and spotted short hair the following season before growing the dreadlocks back on and then plating them over two seasons.

Newspaper readers see the team fashion and personal appearance changes, and if they are presented with an image that does not tally with what they know as the present manifestation of both team and person, they cannot be faulted for feeling somewhat cheated or even insulted.

How does it happen that a picture of an English Premiership player from four or five years ago finds its way into our newspapers when the internet provides a wide array of latest pictures showing players during recent matches?

Google.com possesses thousands of pictures of sports personalities and the mainstream print media has taken advantage of the internet’s “hospitality”.

Newspapers often make the mistake of choosing the best quality pictures online and disregarding the “timeliness” factor.

Readers watch European football via satellite television.

They also read match reports and other latest sports news online where latest pictures are always available.

Because readers are in touch with the latest sports news and event from across the world, newspapers cannot “fool” them by presenting outdated imagery.

Google is not the only image search option available to newspapers.

www.scour.com, founded in 2007 as Aftervote.com, has an AJAX backbone and a singular mission to deliver the most relevant search results to the user as quickly as possible.

Users are also given the opportunity to vote and comment on search result relevancy, and searchers can also connect with each other.

The result is what Scour calls a “social search community” experience, which is achieved via innovative Web search solutions.

Another search engine, www.xmarks.com, has bookmark-powered Web discovery features like Site Info and Smarter Search help users uncover the best websites based on popularity.

Xmarks estimates it manages more than a billion bookmarked pages.

www.blekko.com strives to create a differentiated search experience through curated, selective, high quality results and content organised into categories. Its sophisticated search technology drives its entire suite of products — the Internet search engine itself, a mobile app as well as a social news platform.

www.duckduckgo.com believes a superior search engine experience and privacy can go hand in hand.

It strives to offer “tonnes of goodies” without tracking users and without the extraneous clutter of many search engines.

Users will not be filtered, and the result is a more pristine search experience.

Many users love the added assurance that the company is not tracking their every move.

Clearly, there are many good options beyond just Google and Bing, and print media has lots of options to give its readers the most relevant, timely and appropriate sports images to capture their imagination as they browse through the back pages.