We all know the exciting conclusion of the World championship and its thrills and spills. In a nutshell, both Gukesh and Ding are humble and spoke with earnest honesty about their game and thoughts, fought like gladiators and Gukesh pipped Ding due to his stronger mental fortitude with Game 14 decided by an uncharacteristic blunder from the defending champion.

What I want to document is my observations of press work there, working for CHESS magazine over the past 2.5 weeks.

Background

The only 'real' jobs I have worked are school teaching (18 yrs) and chess training (10 yrs).  I write a bit but what pays the bills is the coaching. However, after completing school and National Service, I thought of becoming a journalist, but suddenly when the ad for school teachers came up, I just applied and got the job.  Henceforth, I thought nothing of the initial ambition.

When it became apparent that the World Championship was going to be held in Singapore, I had to get involved in covering the event. I am really thankful to Chess and Bridge (thanks a great deal - Richard (Palliser, IM) for the glowing reference letter sent to FIDE to accredit me as 'Written Press' for the company to attend the event.

Bullet speed coverage and effort

What shocked me right smack in the opening ceremony was how fast the professional media works. I mean, as the event was unfolding, Chessbase India was churning out writeups and videos of what went on in real time.

IM Sagah Shah at the Opening Ceremony. I told him that Chessbase India is unbelievable...working at bullet speed for event coverage.

Another case of speed reporting which was a real help for other fellow journalists and also readers was that Chessbase India posted the whole press conference match transcripts (who said what during the interviews) mere hours after the conference ended on their FB and X pages. There was absolutely no need to do so, given that there were videos of the event which can be watched live after the match. But that they did. Really awesome and swift work!

Working round the clock

For me, I only had to deliver 'the final product' towards the end (as well as related articles for the following issue) since I am covering for a monthly print Chess Magazine (no pun intended). But the majority of the press there rush to post their stories, videos and social media posts in real time or right after the match or activities. I can really feel the intensity in the media room. Media room atmosphere during Game 1

It's just furious typing and analysis done from the journos all the way. I could see and hear one dictating chess variations and his thoughts on the moves non-stop from the start of the game till the end and he was most likely putting his notes into voice clips, to be transcribed for reading and editing. It's just work, work and work for them all the way and that's why we get the news coverage so timely and swiftly.

Photo/Video journalism at the World Championships

Now readers and viewers definitely want to see the player close up, their emotions, their anguish or joy when then game reaches a turning point. But it takes skill and patience to get the correct and timely shots. Of course it's possible to do so by taking screen shots of video feeds but the quality of the pictures becomes diminished and the pro photographer's ability can really make the difference. Here, I want to say that the photos provided by FIDE Press- thanks to their photographers Eng Chin An and Maria Emelianova, are really 2700 Elo level.

So FIDE allowed accredited photographers to be in the Glass Cube for the first 20 minutes of the match and there, they could get the close ups necessary to bring out the intensity of the match. 

Pictures credit - Eng Chin An (FIDE)

Work Rate

There's also the journalist who covers the event with roving interviews and inject a fun element to spice up reports/videos, for example Chess.com's FM Mike Klein - https://x.com/ChessMike/status/1866772842651750724

But what you can't see is Mike dashing down the hallway with his mobile phone to video-capture Ding or Gukesh to film their 'sprint' day after day so that makes it a total of 28 dashes.

Also, also after every post conference interview, he 'ambushes' the two contenders directly outside the door to get in more questions/answers. 

On one occasion, I had completed the assignments for the day and was about to leave. FM Jarred Neubronner, who was covering the event for Straits Times didn't follow us to take the transport bus back to Vivocity (Harbourfront) on the mainland. He was scurrying back by foot from the Convention centre to the Media press room to continue his work. I heard they finally packed up at 2am and took a Grab home. There were also occasions when I went for dinner and the ST journos were still plugging away, no dinner for them until they are done. So the 20+ news articles that we see on the World Championships were really immense effort by the journos at hand.

Labour of love

On the first rest day, I had scheduled interviews with GM David Howell and IM Jovanka Houska and they were really marvellous subjects to cover with very detailed, informative answers as well. David even skipped part of Jovi's masterclasses (which he had planned to watch) to do the super long interview coverage so as to help this journo out.

The immense amount of work it takes to get the Commentary Studio broadcasts done. It's not just a couple of cameras for livestreaming.

Getting ready for the 5pm show!

Here's a short segment of the GM David Howell interview

What didn't occur to me was how tough the work really is, that is, if you are doing it full time. The total time spent on traveling from home to Sentosa and back was 2.5 hours and I also covered the Jovi and David masterclasses before doing the two interviews with them. Also, count in the time that Jovi and David spent signing autographs, obliging fan selfies and questions. That's 5 hours just to get the necessary material for 1 article. And according to an ST journalist (for their sport assignments), this is par for the course and they might not even get the material required.  My editor Richard told me that to cover London Chess Classic, he had to 'invest' more than a hundred pounds for travel and accommodation and then dash back to do his normal work and clearly, chess journalism is a 'labour of love' and the effort spent is really not easy financial-wise.

Press conference jinks

There were some negative comments from top GM chess streamers about  questions posed by some journalists eg on 'fluff' topics totally unrelated to chess. This issue also went viral on Reddit and questions were posed on why these fellas were up to asking about such unrelated issues. Nemo posted her reply to Nakamura's question here.

The chief organizer GM Kevin Goh felt it necessary to give a background to the intent of these questions. He remarked "There is generally a thought process behind the questions. Not everyone gets it, but if everyone asks technical stuff, the whole press conference will be tense and dry and there’s only so much that the players can say about one game. Some questions were asked with the hope of bringing out the personalities of the players so that the fans can know them a bit better outside their grim demeanour at the chess board. I think everyone including both players enjoyed the light-hearted moment with the Ding Chilling question". You can see the entire Kevin tweet here

From my perspective, the intent of the Nemo question is also to promote Sentosa as a fun place full of activities for tourists. And when Ding Liren replied that 'it's for kids", product placement is achieved (for kids' at least).

What you see is what you got.

The fast reports with links to the high resolution pictures of every game made its way to our email inboxes just before midnight, day after day too thanks to IM Michael Rahal. That's why he was asking the contenders those very tough questions during the press conferences. as after that, he will work with what he got to get the reports out pronto.

IM Michael Rahal (FIDE)

So I close by saying...chess journalism (or sports) isn't a piece of cake as I have observed in the past three weeks. It's clearly a labour of love as IM Richard Palliser puts it and sometimes it might not pay (the effort doesn't justify the moolah but heck, we do it for chess). So before one slams the coverage or the questioning, maybe spare a thought for the press guys and gals. We are all trying our best all the time.