Notes on a scandal - and the power of a simple press release

If you haven't read The Guardian, the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, or watched CNN, CBS, BBC, FOX News, even The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, or consumed any news at all in the last eight days you may not have heard about this.

But everyone else with an interest in media should have registered somewhere on their radar the story that over the past week has thrust our creation, the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour, right into the spotlight.

Some might claim it is for negative reasons: a scandal. Although, I have to say, it is my firm belief that intrigue and scandals, as well as engaging personalities, are part of what holds our interest in high-level sport.

But to summarise, chess has been grappling with a divisive cheating storm involving the World Champion Magnus Carlsen, founder of the Play Magnus Group , and a young American talent called Hans Niemann.

The background

It started at an event in the US and then reignited spectacularly in an elite-level tournament we (Play Magnus Group) run online, called the Julius Baer Generation Cup.

The event, which ended yesterday, was supposed to focus on the clash of generations in chess. Actually, the sporting narrative of the tournament did exactly that - in the final, we had Carlsen taking on another young super-talent, India's Arjun Erigaisi. Carlsen, the leading light of the golden 1990 generation of players, was the victor. 1-0 to us old guys.

However, despite our best intentions, the reality is that won't be what it will be remembered for. In Round 6, Carlsen effectively refused to face Niemann by resigning his game after one move - the chess equivalent of Roger Federer walking out of Centre Court after returning one serve.

Now, at this point, I must stress that chess is not a sport that has traditionally enjoyed widespread coverage. So when this little world that we are trying to expand was thrust into a media storm by Carlsen's action it was a bit of a shock to some.

A real headline-grabber

The World Champion pulling out of a game in this manner would have made a reasonable ripple of interest, regardless. But what really piqued it was no doubt a bizarre internet rumour, started by an anonymous poster, that had surfaced earlier and set Twitter ablaze. It mused that perhaps anal beads had been used in the alleged cheating. Elon Musk then fanned the flames by retweeting the theory and, when Carlsen played his one move in the Julius Baer Generation Cup, this story became irresistible for click-hungry journalists.

Suddenly, it was everywhere. Even the Daily Star. Even The Daily Show, which broadcast this skit mocking the entire controversy.

Chess was an everyday talking point - a "have you heard about" topic at the water-cooler. Even my mum wanted to know if Hans Niemann had used anal beads to cheat, even if it clearly wasn't true. Of course, the words "anal beads" and "chess" aren't normally associated and were a gift to headline writers around the world. As someone who has written headlines for The Sun, MailOnline and The Daily Telegraph among others, I completely understand that.

The results

According to Meltwater, the sponsor of our wider Tour and the media analysis tool we use to track coverage, at the time of writing there have been 1,660 news articles worldwide written on the event. That number is sure to rise, given the Julius Baer Generation Cup only ended a matter of hours ago.

Meltwater also monitored the social reaction, and here are their results:

"Yes, but they were all about a scandal that will go away," I hear you say. They mostly were, I agree. But the controversy most publications were interested in happened last Monday and since then there has been a very pleasing increase in news articles published reporting on the results of the tournament itself. Publications came back for more.

Here is where the humble press release sent out to key contacts comes in.

The problem

Our problem is that chess is a sport that's uniquely difficult to cover. Sportsdesks all have journalists who know how to cover, say, football, cricket and rugby. In fact, any competent reporter worth their salt should be able to knock up a report on any sport. Hell, in my 20s I reported for months on the 2009 financial crash despite not knowing a bean about macroeconomics.

Yet chess is undoubtedly a specialist subject you just cannot wing - your lack of knowledge will inevitably be exposed. You, and your reader, need a mastery of the game to understand why Arjun lost his way in the final after 12.Qe1 Bxh3 13.Rxh3 Ng7. Even as someone who has a wealth of experience working on national newsdesks and has reported on chess for years, I am most definitely not a chess master and sometimes embarrass myself.

So how do we get nervous newsdesks to cover our events? Put simply, we make it easy. During tournaments, we routinely send out releases to our media list detailing the day's play. They are, in effect, simple reports designed so reporters unfamiliar with the game or unconfident about reporting on it can - if they wish - just cut and paste them onto a webpage. Of course, we hope they add their own value, but it shouldn't be necessary.

A gift for journalists

There is a phrase in journalism that is like music to a news editor's ears: when someone says a story is "easy copy". We provide everything you need to know, all the action boiled down, quotes, photos, graphics, video and colourful descriptions of the drama to excite readers. Everything a journalist could wish for, plonked into their inbox. If there's a controversy, we aren't afraid to mention it - even if some might say it hurts our brand.

The press releases are bright and breezy and without jargon - unlike traditional chess reports in the "chess press". Also, they are sent out quickly to maximise coverage.

And, when incidents like this happen - as they inevitably do in elite-level sport - it pays off.

Moving it on

Websites pick up our press releases and publish them. For example, this one: a story originally published on Dot Esports and syndicated to MSN which barely mentions the scandal and reports primarily on Carlsen winning the event. The final destination alone is listed as having a potential reach, according to Meltwater, of 144 million. It is very similar to the press release sent out on Sunday night.

As I tap "Julius Baer Generation Cup" into my Meltwater media monitoring dashboard I can see plenty more stories like this appearing in publications around the world that are about the event, not the scandal. Times Now (22m), The Tribune (4.23m), The New Indian Express (8.34m), Чемпионат (16.7m), Republic World (8.79m).

The tournament itself was broadcast on chess24's YouTube and Twitch and early indications from our stats suggest the event had the highest concurrent viewership of this year's Tour, meaning people are not only coming for the drama but staying for the chess. Most of the data isn't in yet, but we expect a similar story.

I have been told informally the hits on stories elsewhere have been through the roof. My contact at The Guardian told me this, as did the BBC and the Financial Times and they were hungry for the follow-up. On our chess news section on chess24, aimed mainly at die-hard chess enthusiasts, the hits topped 100,000.

During the week, I have lost count of how many times I've been contacted by journalists from publications around the world initially over the scandal. But these are new contacts with people who may never have considered covering chess before. The scandal has drawn them in.

The challenge, of course, is to keep them. Chess is not football, or cricket or rugby - we have to work hard for coverage.

But the power of a simple press release with all the information needed on a brilliant product will help. It is still "best by test" (that's a chess reference, by the way ??).