So while Andy Murray spends his first week basking in the glory of his Wimbledon success, it would seem that certain news outlets decided to ever so slightly tweak his achievement to make for a better headline.
Numerous news headlines would have us believe that Andy ended our 77 year wait for a British champion last Sunday. Yes, we believed what we read too, until someone reminded us of Virginia Wade, a Brit who won the ladies singles championship title back in 1977.
Now let’s not belittle Andy Murray’s fantastic win – He is of course the first British tennis player to lift the trophy…….that’s male, in a very long time with Fred Perry being the last to do so back in 1936.
The Guardian dug a little deeper and discovered that there have been several other British female singles titles champions in addition to Virginia. Three others in fact – Dorothy Round Little won in 1937, Angela Mortimor in 1961, and Ann Haydon Jones in 1969.
So, far from waiting 77 years, we’ve actually had five winners in the last 76 years. But does this sound so great from a headline grabbing perspective? Well clearly not, according to many branches of the press who preferred to completely forget Virginia, Dorothy and Angela’s Wimbledon successes to sensationalise their headlines.
As B2B PR specialists our job is to make sure our customers’ stories are as interesting as possible, but we always ensure that our take on a story is based on fact. So, on this occasion were the press just a tad forgetful or did they decide to ignore our British women’s success as it’s considered less significant? I know what I think…..
