No Nose for FIDE News

The 82nd FIDE Congress, underway this week at Krakow, Poland, reminded me about FIDE's Chess News Corporation (or is it Chess Network Company?) that I wrote about a year ago in Critiquing the CNC. Although, at that time, the CNC's news site looked more like a pilot than an active site, I developed the habit of checking once or twice a month on its evolution.

In fact, the site never changed during the months after my Critiquing post, until July, when a completely redesigned site suddenly appeared. I've captured the current home page in the following image.

Chessnc.com: Chess Network Company

If you look at that page today, you'll see the same 'news' that appeared in July -- 'World Cup 2011 List of players and Round 1 pairings' -- even though the seven round event ended almost a month ago.

I've already mentioned several times on my blogs that the main FIDE site, Fide.com, has long been stripped of all meaningful news, unless you consider the comings and goings of the FIDE President to be newsworthy.

The FIDE President met this week with the Arch-Vice Minister of Belugastan. After bows and the exchange of traditional dairy products, it was announced that FIDE is considering the construction of a chess school in the form of an extra-terrestrial spaceship.

Now that the CNC news site has also turned out to be a dud, how does FIDE intend to communicate with the many chess fans around the world? Maybe an answer will emerge from the 82nd Congress, but something tells me this won't happen either. Did someone mention modernization?