The Terrible Journalism & Tom English Thread

[Dr Koop]

2 minutes ago, Bairnardo said:

Careful lads, we are going to accidentally put together a Daily Record back page here.

 

[C4mmy31]

WTF...... The BBC stooping to a new all time low, posting a story about "The Colins" on the Killie page.

Edited July 21, 2018 by C4mmy31

[The DA]

6 hours ago, JTS98 said:

Sentence is fine. Perhaps overly complex and two sentences would have been simpler, but the grammar is fine.

Too complex for its target audience, Sheep and PNE fans.

[senorsoupe]

Not sure what this headline from the Daily Record is trying to accomplish. Are they tying to make a comment about how Joe Hart is in people's Hearts?  Or did their autocorrect system automatically correct Hart to Hearts?

[LiviLion]

3 minutes ago, senorsoupe said:

Not sure what this headline from the Daily Record is trying to accomplish. Are they tying to make a comment about how Joe Hart is in people's Hearts?  Or did their autocorrect system automatically correct Hart to Hearts?

 

23 hours ago, craigkillie said:

This thread is mostly shite now for that reason - people using it to highlight typos and similar errors which are made in haste (live blogs, Twitter etc) rather than actual bad journalism.

 

[Guest Moomintroll]

My personal pet-hate is the choice of reporting verbs papers and other media outlets, especially but not exclusively in the tabloids, are using for their headlines.
Guff like 'Gerrard insists 'Gers will improve'. Did he really 'insist'? Really? Did someone shout out from the assembled hacks 'Yer arse they will!', prompting Gerrard to slam his fist on the desk and reassert his point? I doubt it. So use 'says' instead.
Also yesterday we had the manager of Rangers' next European opponents 'warning' Rangers. Read the article and he did no such thing. He just pointed out that they'd won a tough game last season in Europe and hoped to do so again. I doubt very much that he spoke in aggressive tones with an extended finger prodding into the air to deliver this 'warning'.
Recently we also had Gerrard 'admitting' that Rangers are not the finished article. Did anyone think they were? Had he started out by claiming that they were only to finally break down in tears under intense questioning by Keith Jackson and finally confess the ugly truth, that after three weeks with his new team he hasn't quite got the side he wants yet...
Bollocks. Bollocks, all of it.

Has anyone involved in football ever actually "roared" during a press conference?

[Swordfishtrombone]

This is the time of year we get to read stories about 'cocky', European opposition for Scottish teams, when an opposition manager or player has not unreasonably said they think they have a chance of beating their Scottish opponents. 

[Melanius Mullarkey]

1 hour ago, Moomintroll said:

On 21/07/2018 at 08:57, JTS98 said:

 

Has anyone involved in football ever actually "roared" during a press conference?

Only one person can answer that.

@Peppino Impastato

[Guest Moomintroll]

Only one person can answer that.
[mention=67103]Peppino Impastato[/mention]

Well you wouldn't have a fucking clue because you've never been a professional fucking journalist champ.

[Guest JTS98]

I know it's a logical result of the explosion of the internet and the huge expansion of outlets for football news, but the standard of journalist writing about football (not only in Scotland) is utterly appalling at the moment.

Sadly the appetite for football stories is such that the BBC, the newspapers, online football magazines etc know that they can get more or less any old diddy straight out of uni who will be desperate for the leg up to write them some absolute guff and it will probably still attract the clicks they want.

BBC articles are riddled with factual errors and basic grammar mistakes. I know because I'm the kind of sad b*****d that emails in to point out their abuse of the English language. To be fair, they reply promptly and usually update the offending article. The point is that these student-newspaper standard writers with far more enthusiasm than talent simply shouldn't be anywhere near a professional organisation. They have nothing to say and they say it badly. Usually in cliche-ridden articles rammed with journo-speak.

Even at other organisations the standard is dropping. The Guardian used to have a pretty reliable football section with mainly good writers. Their lead article yesterday was a puff piece with a new Liverpool signing talking about wearing a Liverpool shirt when he was a kid and explaining how good he was going to be at Liverpool. It was basically a piece that belonged on the official Liverpool website. It's dreadful when professional writers with the door-opening name of a national newspaper behind them can make no more of that direct access to professional footballers than a fan piece.

I spent more time than is healthy during the World Cup paying attention to the predictions professional football writers made about the tournament on the Guardian and Totally Football podcasts. I also paid close attention to their reactions to games and reviews of games. Go back and listen for yourself. These guys are no more qualified than your average punter on the street, they've just lucked into a position where they get paid to talk and write about football while the rest of us do it on sites like this for free. They are, by and large, complete and utter charlatans.

Listen to an edition of Football Weekly and tell me that Bary Glendenning knows any more about football or is any more qualified to give opinions on it than anyone on this site. Ask yourself what Keith Jackson's insight into football is. Consider what Chick Young brings to his job that dozens of people you know personally could not. You could pick from dozens of people being paid to write and talk about football and ask the same questions. The pool of genuine talent and good journalism is tiny. Sadly, the overall pool is huge.

Anyway. Football journalism these days is shite, is the gist of what I came here to say.

Edited July 22, 2018 by JTS98

[HaikuHibee]

7 hours ago, JTS98 said:

I know it's a logical result of the explosion of the internet and the huge expansion of outlets for football news, but the standard of journalist writing about football (not only in Scotland) is utterly appalling at the moment.

Sadly the appetite for football stories is such that the BBC, the newspapers, online football magazines etc know that they can get more or less any old diddy straight out of uni who will be desperate for the leg up to write them some absolute guff and it will probably still attract the clicks they want.

BBC articles are riddled with factual errors and basic grammar mistakes. I know because I'm the kind of sad b*****d that emails in to point out their abuse of the English language. To be fair, they reply promptly and usually update the offending article. The point is that these student-newspaper standard writers with far more enthusiasm than talent simply shouldn't be anywhere near a professional organisation. They have nothing to say and they say it badly. Usually in cliche-ridden articles rammed with journo-speak.

Even at other organisations the standard is dropping. The Guardian used to have a pretty reliable football section with mainly good writers. Their lead article yesterday was a puff piece with a new Liverpool signing talking about wearing a Liverpool shirt when he was a kid and explaining how good he was going to be at Liverpool. It was basically a piece that belonged on the official Liverpool website. It's dreadful when professional writers with the door-opening name of a national newspaper behind them can make no more of that direct access to professional footballers than a fan piece.

I spent more time than is healthy during the World Cup of paying attention to the predictions professional football writers made about the tournament on the Guardian and Totally Football podcasts. I also paid close attention to their reactions to games and reviews of games. Go back and listen for yourself. These guys are no more qualified than your average punter on the street, they've just lucked into a position where they get paid to talk and write about football while the rest of us do it on sites like this for free. They are, by and large, complete and utter charlatans.

Listen to an edition of Football Weekly and tell me that Bary Glendenning knows any more about football or is any more qualified to give opinions on it than anyone on this site. Ask yourself what Keith Jackson's insight into football is. Consider what Chick Young brings to his job that dozens of people you know personally could not. You could pick from dozens of people being paid to write and talk about football and ask the same questions. The pool of genuine talent and good journalism is tiny. Sadly, the overall pool is huge.

Anyway. Football journalism these days is shite, is the gist of what I came here to say.

It's just quantity, people want round the clock news. So they just write guff

 

Edited July 22, 2018 by HaikuHibee

[Dr Koop]

'Football' journalism is written by people who can't write properly for people who can't read properly about a game that isn't played properly, to paraphrase some 1960s genius who might be Frank Zappa. 

Every now and again I'll come across aspiring journalists who want to be 'football writers'. That depresses me. I'd much rather they were good all-round writers who knew a bit and who could turn to sport. Old Firm fanboy garbage drives me up the wall. How many of these guys really want to 'journalise' instead of peddling PR and press conference guff?

Rant over.

 

[Miguel Sanchez]

15 minutes ago, Dr Koop said:

'Football' journalism is written by people who can't write properly for people who can't read properly about a game that isn't played properly, to paraphrase some 1960s genius who might be Frank Zappa. 

Every now and again I'll come across aspiring journalists who want to be 'football writers'. That depresses me. I'd much rather they were good all-round writers who knew a bit and who could turn to sport. Old Firm fanboy garbage drives me up the wall. How many of these guys really want to 'journalise' instead of peddling PR and press conference guff?

Rant over.

 

Speaking of which, Keith Jackson's writing about tennis needs to be seen to be believed: https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/tennis/roger-federer-rallies-behind-andy-12841662

Even the header and sub, let's just compare that to a discussion on the previous page:

 

Quote

 

Roger Federer backs Andy Murray and admits he's desperate to see the Scot back to his best

Murray withdrew from Wimbledon at the 11th hour on Sunday amid fresh concerns over his future.

 

Now let's see it with the tennis specific parts taken out:

Quote

[Player] backs [Player] and admits he's desperate to see the Scot back to his best

[Player] withdrew from [Tournament] at the 11th hour on Sunday amid fresh concerns over his future.

It's stock bullshit peddled by someone incapable of coming up with an original thought for an audience who wouldn't be able to understand it, right enough.

[Spectre]

The wider problem is the newspaper industry.  They require a certain ammount of news stories a day to fill a newspaper. This results in a number of puff pieces and press releases which are used simply to fill the paper and have no value to anyone. How many news stories are worthwhile to anyone in a day? Its probably no more than 3 articles on average and on some days, theres probably nothing worth reporting. Newspapers need to release a newspaper everyday so that they can survive as a company. This results in journalists being required to provide an article everyday. Because of this, what you find in a newspaper is mostly poorly researched, sometimes bordering on propaganda, nonsense. The same thing happens in the sports section. Journalists twist the words of an interview to turn a non-story into a backpage headline. Journalists speak more about the Old Firm, because the clubs have more fans and in turn, more people are interested in reading those articles. A newspaper requires space to be filled, so journalists have to write about something when there is nothing valuable to write about. Poor journalism is only part of the problem, the whole industry is set up to peddle shit down our throats which is either irrelevent or wrong. Its all very well criticising the individuals who write these articles but they are simply a product of a system which is designed to get as much money as possible so their dying business can stave off the grim reaper for another day.

[Dr Koop]

1 hour ago, Miguel Sanchez said:

Speaking of which, Keith Jackson's writing about tennis needs to be seen to be believed: https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/tennis/roger-federer-rallies-behind-andy-12841662

Even the header and sub, let's just compare that to a discussion on the previous page:

 

Now let's see it with the tennis specific parts taken out:

It's stock bullshit peddled by someone incapable of coming up with an original thought for an audience who wouldn't be able to understand it, right enough.

Insert "My mate ..." into headline. It's summer silly season! 

[Guest JTS98]

1 hour ago, Miguel Sanchez said:

Speaking of which, Keith Jackson's writing about tennis needs to be seen to be believed: https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/tennis/roger-federer-rallies-behind-andy-12841662

Even the header and sub, let's just compare that to a discussion on the previous page:

 

Now let's see it with the tennis specific parts taken out:

It's stock bullshit peddled by someone incapable of coming up with an original thought for an audience who wouldn't be able to understand it, right enough.

Quite the confession from Federer there...

[DA Baracus]

Journalism used to be about investigation and finding the truth. It used to hold people accountable to their words and ask them to prove things. It used to be about demanding evidence to ensure veracity. 

Now it's all about generating profit. It's all about clickbait. Truth, honesty, integrity; none of these things matter. As long as a profit is made everything and everyone is expendable.

[Melanius Mullarkey]

17 minutes ago, DA Baracus said:

Journalism used to be about investigation and finding the truth. It used to hold people accountable to their words and ask them to prove things. It used to be about demanding evidence to ensure veracity. 

Apart from the Sunday Sport. That was mostly about Elvis flying Hitler to the moon in a B52 bomber for a party on his red London bus. And tits.

[Dons_1988]

Journalism used to be about investigation and finding the truth. It used to hold people accountable to their words and ask them to prove things. It used to be about demanding evidence to ensure veracity. 
Now it's all about generating profit. It's all about clickbait. Truth, honesty, integrity; none of these things matter. As long as a profit is made everything and everyone is expendable.

Sad thing is though it wouldn’t be the case if there wasn’t a demand for it.

Far too many people would rather read click bait shite than actual journalism. Twitter etc has just made it nigh on impossible for papers etc to survive by just producing good, factual thought provoking articles.

[coprolite]

9 hours ago, DA Baracus said:

Journalism used to be about investigation and finding the truth. It used to hold people accountable to their words and ask them to prove things. It used to be about demanding evidence to ensure veracity. 

Now it's all about generating profit. It's all about clickbait. Truth, honesty, integrity; none of these things matter. As long as a profit is made everything and everyone is expendable.

There has always been shite journalism.  I think that nowadays there is just more journalism, but the amount of quality reporting hasn't increased.