Interview with Daniel Taylor from The Guardian

[Newman Noggs]

I'm not sure I understand the argument that taking action against unfavourable journalists would help even if they do lie. It's not as though their bosses are going to sack them or make them report differently. If anything, I think it would make them worse. The GPC only had to make isolated examples of his wrath because the majority of the press were kissing his arse. We'd have to ban them all except 3 or 4. We can't force our enemies to be our friends so it's a question of toughing it out. If it takes 10 years or more, so be it.

As for the interview. Most of what he said rang true to me but I still believe that the preponderance of individual agendas in the press pack has the same all-pervading effect as a collective agenda.

 

[cibaman]

The club has to be selective in its dealings with the media. They'll pick and choose which stories they take issue with. I expect the recent stories about the Lampard deal and FFP will have had the club in a lather because they raised questions about the integrity of club. But a bad match report or a denigrating article on the manager or Yaya Toure will hardly register. They'll concentrate on reports that they can prove are factually incorrect, not just a matter of opinion.

 

[Damocles]

I think he possibly did come across a little patronising towards City fans at times, certainly regarding the Champions League, but as mentioned some of the questions were ill-prepared and set the tone of the interview. Plus Forest were losing 3-0 at the time. If pressed on City when we were losing, I'd probably be a touch cantankerous as well.

My only intention from the interview was for us to get an insight into how the press think, and hopefully most found it interesting. I appreciated his forthright views, even if some don't agree with them. It wasn't "sidling up the press", as some put it, just a chance to hear things from a different perspective.

Never do email interviews as when he says ridiculous shit like the below it doesn't give you ability to tell him that his shit is ridiculous.

Everyone has seen how poor United are that way this season – well, look at the table, United have conceded 21 goals, and City 22! It just hasn't had the same exposure (typical anti-City press!).

Because City had problems on organisation and United's defence is absolutely all over the place. It hasn't had exposure because ours isn't that much of a concern whereas theirs is a massive and gaping hole in their team. In logic circles they call this the Texas Sharpshooter. Goals conceded is not the be all and end all of the quality or performance of a defence, you can have a great defensive performance and concede 3 goals or have a terrible defensive performance and concede 0. He either completely misunderstands football, which I don't think he does, or he's arguing an overly simplistic point.

Moreover, ask yourself this - who brought up United and the anti-City press first in that interview?

Before then, you could sometimes detect an inferiority complex when City played the big teams

That's is ridiculously patronising. What exactly is an inferiority complex and does he have the necessary qualification and experience to detect such a thing in athletes? Who was suffering from it? Who wasn't? What markers did you use to detect such a thing?

This is one of those sentences that means nothing at all yet people use to sound clever. What he means was "City didn't play very well" but as he's a bullshit journalist he couldn't just leave it at such a true and simplistic thing, he has to invent these notions of inferiority and because people have been using the cliche for years, idiots nod their head sagely and think "oh he's got a point there". He's got no point. He may as well have said that it was a game of two halves and City never really got going because they didn't work hard enough and the boy from the other side is a bit special and has a mercurial left foot like a traction engine. What he said didn't mean anything at all.

Let's not kid ourselves that Roma were a great team but it isn't easy going to Italy to play the second-placed side in Serie A and putting on that kind of performance.

They were about to go through in a CL group containing Munich, City and Moscow. Let's not kid ourselves that they are anything but a great team. You don't get into the Champions League unless you're a great team. The clue's in the name genius.

I know, and understand, the ill feeling towards Uefa but, seriously, you really don't know what you're missing going out early every year. Those big games – the quarter-finals, the semi-finals – they're something else.

Yeah Danny, I'm sure as a Notts Forest fan whose first game was in the 81/82 you have a great amount of experience about what those quarter finals of the CL are like. Unless he's talking about his experience at watching other teams play in those quarters and semis. Because unlike this behemoth of footballing travel and experience we as a fanbase only ever watch City and couldn't possibly have seen something like that mister.

He also implies that we want to go out early, like we had a choice and were jumping around telling people to score an own goal.

Those clubs saw what was happening, didn't like it and made sure that rules were put in place to make sure City didn't get it all their own way.

FFP was getting put together even before City even got took over. Chief Football Writer at the Guardian everybody.

Sometimes I wonder if it is a more deep-rooted thing and goes back to the years when City could barely get in the newspapers while obviously United were cleaning up trophy-wise and getting all the publicity.

Yeah, it's the not the fact that wankers like you come out with patronising shit like this on a daily basis, or that there's a documented video on Youtube where a bunch of national sports writers sit around saying that they hope City go out of business and that we're "morally bankrupt", it's because we're obsessed with United. You fucking moron.

This was a front-page splash in our sports section and was picked up by various other newspapers, not just in England but all around Europe. The reason why? Because the club is Manchester United. Whether you want to believe it or not, the simple fact is it wouldn't have had the same kind of exposure or reach if it was a City scout.

Balotelli scrapping with Mancini? Imagine if that was Rooney and Fergie. There would be television cameras outside Old Trafford for two weeks, people doorstepping Rooney at home, questions in the House of Commons. Balotelli's fireworks night? Trust me, that would be News at Ten if that was Rooney or Gerrard or Terry.

"Do I think City get unduly negative press? No. I'm now going to show you why by calling you a small club that nobody cares about. Remember folks, none of us think any less of City."

People are looking to be offended as some kind of weird default setting.

Have you ever considered that if everybody around you "is looking to be offended as a default setting" then the most simplistic answer is that you're probably just a ****? Occams Razor and all that.

I can remember one guy on Twitter bitterly complaining to me that I had chosen to cover a United game rather than a City one – never mind the fact that was the season I did all six City games in the Champions League and zero of United's.

Why is this even remotely relevant? He wasn't complaining that you NEVER cover City, just that you didn't cover that one. Without context there's no argument. If you covered all six CL games but then covered United rather than City/West Ham then I'd be asking questions to. If City were at Mansfield and United were playing Arsenal I wouldn't be asking questions.

Do you see how he keeps doing this? Leaving out all of the relevant information that would allow people to see if it is him or the other person that is full of shit?

But the fact is this: if you offered a football journalist the choice between a big story at City or United it won't be your club they choose. Not even close. A choice between a Mourinho controversy or a Pellegrini one? Mourinho every time.

There's no agenda against you lot. But here is me saying immediately that there's a pecking order and you're not in it. Agendas are totally different from pecking order because...err....did I mention I was at Mansfield and I'm a big Forest fan?

Mine, however, is from someone who has worked in the industry for years and you really don't have it half as bad as a lot of you imagine.

Yes, you have come off as somebody who obviously loves City and in no way thinks any less of us as a club or as a fanbase. I'm sure you've completely dispelled any and all thoughts that City are patronised and disliked in the national media circles with this positive interview where you constantly slag us off and talk about United throughout the whole thing.

But that isn't completely true, is it? Hughes's sacking was not portrayed as 'acting rashly and not giving a young, British manager a fair chance.' It was criticised because a) it was handled terribly, with him taking charge of a game when everyone knew he was a dead man walking b) City had told us categorically (and, naively, we believed them) that there was no way they would even contemplate replacing him and, as it turned out, they had been sounding out people since the previous summer

Yeah right mate.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqjQLBuwOZk[/video]

United had that after Moyes didn't they?

Some City fans seem to think there was a 'friends of Mark Hughes' operation going on in the Manchester press pack. Not even close to being true. Hughes didn't speak to anyone outside press conferences.

Not only is this a lie but I can prove it. After the above video I sent an email to Rob Beesley and had a threeway conversation between myself, Vicky Kloss and him. My point was that when he claimed Mancini was stood in the stands at the Sunderland game he was either wrong or invented Star Trek transporters because he gave a live interview from Jese in Italy on the same day. He admitted regarding the above interview that they were "sticking up for their mate Hughes". I asked him if this was fair that he was writing and speaking based on an unacknowledged agenda and he literally said that all reporters are human and they all want to defend "their mate" Hughes so to expect negative press from other sources. Beesley literally declared himself a "friends of Mark Hughes" and identified Paul Smith as the same which caused the above. Again, maybe they all just thought Danny was a **** and didn't let him in the group?

Again, though, is this some sort of sinister media agenda? I'd say it is more likely that City's spending was so extreme and so out of the ordinary it became a huge shock-value story. United have always broken transfer records, far more so than any other club.

So hypocrisy is fine if it is expected and we don't bother highlighting it.

Chief Football Writer at the Guardian everybody.

You're telling me Ian Herbert - he's a Wrexham supporter by the way - is a “self-confessed United fan”? He's kept that from me all these years. David McDonnell, brought up watching West Ham, has owned up to supporting United? Mark Ogden, I'll give you (just as Simon Mullock is a self-confessed City fan and I've never heard any complaints about that via Bluemoon). But Ian Ladyman? He'll be amused by that one.

He conned you there Ric. He knew you didn't literally mean that they were sat in the Stretford End but that they had an obvious bias in their print towards United. Anybody who tells me that David McDonnell doesn't have a bias towards United in his journalism and isn't in their pocket is David Icke levels of absolutely insane.

Again, he knew what you were trying to say but played semantics instead to make you look like an idiot.

I used to read Bluemoon when I was the Manchester patch man and it has some great posters. I follow a lot on Twitter and I know a few in - shock, horror - real life. But I've also seen some weird stuff on there. One was a complaint that they saw me in the pressbox after City had scored a late goal and apparently I looked miserable - which was the final piece of evidence, plainly, that I was indeed Fergie's secret love-child

Unfortunately for Danny, we have a lovely search system which you can search for "taylor pressbox" and other terms like it and not find a single post saying that. Remembering things accurately, especially what somebody has said and who said it, is hard.

Chief Football Writer at the Guardian everybody.

First of all, I reckon Henry and Martin would dispute they have 'come round' because that implies their starting position was anti-City.

Yeah who could possibly invent such a ludicrous idea that journalists were anti-City when we were taken over?

You were marginalised, sometimes patronised, and there was that famous back page on the Mirror on the night you played Mansfield and United were playing Bayern Munich and I can see why that has built up a festering grudge.
-- Daniel Taylor, 2014

Ferguson was ridiculous – I say that as someone he banned for seven years – but he had the standing, the trophy count, the history, to get away with that behaviour to a certain extent. Does Pellegrini? And does Pellegrini actually get negative coverage? He doesn't get glowing coverage but he's a difficult guy to analyse because he gives so little away.

So people only get glowing coverage if they're able to be analysed? Rather than, you know, winning a Double in their first season in England?

Maybe you should write a book about him?

Mangala for £32m? I think they will admit now you can add another £10m on to that. Just like Tevez was £47m.

You should tell UEFA on that Tevez one because it means either City's announced spending of £117m (including Barry, Kolo Toure, Lescott, Roque Santa Cruz, Tevez and Adebayor) was wrong, or we got those other players for about £6.50 each. And that spending was in audited accounts which they presented to Companies House rather than the vomiting of words that you present on dead trees to an increasingly smaller and smaller number of people. Or you've got yet another thing wrong?

Where does this story fit? Is it football or one for the news pages? The football pages are, after all, primarily there for football stories and therefore most newspapers know their readers want a football angle, more often than not, rather than perhaps a feature on a local school or interviews with the local residents.

Seriously, nobody could possibly be this dumb. It's absolutely outrageous that he can claim lack of coverage because people want a football angle. Let me just quote something again that he said IN THIS VERY INTERVIEW.

Balotelli scrapping with Mancini? Imagine if that was Rooney and Fergie. There would be television cameras outside Old Trafford for two weeks, people doorstepping Rooney at home, questions in the House of Commons. Balotelli's fireworks night? Trust me, that would be News at Ten if that was Rooney or Gerrard or Terry. [....] Ryan Giggs was the front page in one tabloid 11 days running when he had his, er, family issue

"The football angle".

Chief Football Writer at the Guardian everybody.

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

The thing about Vicky Kloss that some people seem painfully unable to appreciate is that she's clearly working within the limits that have been imposed upon her by the owners.

For reasons which extend beyond footballing ones, they wish to engage with the media in as collaborative a way as is practicable. This means that we are a soft target for those that seek to abuse that state of affairs and why claims from those on here that we receive a fair crack of the whip from the press descend even further into the absurd.

Comparisons with Taggart's banning culture at united are entirely anomalous, as this is not something our owners would wish to contemplate except in the most egregious of circumstances.

If it was up to me I'd be banning the fuckers at will, and I expect Ms Kloss would, at times, yearn for the capacity to do the same, but she's working within a job description with a wider purpose at its heart than her personal wants and needs.

Most people, even those who are self-employed, have limits placed upon the way they operate in a working environment, sports journalists included. Vicky Kloss is simply doing what she's told and those who criticise her personslly for the club's policy of non-confrontation with the press either haven't thought things through, or don't really understand how the world works.

Not sure if I agree with the non confrontation bit the interview reads exactly the opposite to me.it looks like we confront them but don't confront them by going through other media sources .I think the policy is to keep it in house

Upon reflection I should have said 'policy of avoiding open warfare'.

It's quite possible that the policy behind the scenes has changed, and this has certainly been alluded to on this thread both by Taylor and by other posters, but on the face of things we still seemingly allow disrespectful motherfuckers unfettered access to the half-time vol-au-vaunts, much to the chagrin of many on here.

Upon reflection her job description is bound to have been subject to change since she took the job for two fundamental reasons:

Firstly we don't 'need' the press as much as we did when we were endeavoring to climb the footballing ladder. Now we are established as a footballing force we generate significantly more publicity (both good and bad) by osmosis, without the need to manage our image quite so robustly; in short the press are less important to us.

Secondly, the importance of the press has, simultaneously, diminished during the currency of Mansour's ownership. The club has made great efforts to make the website arguably the best one in club football and doubtless this will be seen as an increasingly effective means of getting the club's message out there.

Perhaps the club has decided not to waste an inordinate amount of emotional energy on a means of communication which is diminishing in importance. They clearly still see the press as important, they'd be foolish not to, but there's possibly a degree of elasticity between the effort required to get them onboard and the benefit that would garner for the club, especially as newspaper readership continues to shrink.

Whatever the answer my previous point remains: Vicky Kloss, as a professional person, will do what she's told by those who employ her. It's as simple as that.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

I have a question to put to PB: what was it that DT shared with you that so drastically changed your position re the article that was published prior to the Munich memorial fixture?

Besides the vilification of our fanbase in that particular article, there was also this article the same year:

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2008/nov/30/premierleague-manchesterunited" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2 ... sterunited</a>

I'm happy to aswer that question.

The context to the original article, which came out in January 2008, was that we had been playing a 3rd round FA Cup tie at Upton Park a few weeks prior to the Munich 50th anniversary game (and were robbed of a first time win by Rob Styles denying us two blatant penalties, but that's by the by). If I recall correctly, after that game DT wrote an article claiming that City fans at the game had sung "We're all going to the golden jubilee". I was at that game and, along with others, hadn't heard it. The article infuriated me and a number of other people and we took it up with Barry Glendenning, who was the football editor at the time. When challenged to produce the evidence, he retreated and said DT had heard it in a pub. When asked which one, he retreated further and claimed someone had told DT it was sung in a pub.

It appeared that the story was complete bullshit (although obviously some City fans do sadly feel the need to use the disaster to taunt the rags) and just seemed to escalate and inflame the general hysteria around the forthcoming game and the seeming acceptance that City fans would disrupt the minute's silence. It also seemed, as the subsequent article highlighted, that DT had a bee in his bonnet about offensive things we sang to the exclusion of offensive songs (some racist and anti-semitic) sung by others. So it's fair to say that I wasn't his biggest fan &I had a pretty deep grudge against him, particularly as he wrote for The Guardian, which I thought might be above all that.
Anyway, wind forward a few years and I can't quite recall whether we were in contact by email beforehand but we met up at Media City where we were doing something for Radio 5 Live. I introduced myself and I made it clear that I still felt strongly about that story (which he obviously already knew from my posts on here). While I completely agreed with his stance against Munich chants, I felt the story was ill-judged and inflammatory and the assumption that we would disrupt the remembrance was insulting.

He then explained the background to the piece, which was that the club were worried about what might happen at the game and Paul Tyrrell, who was Vicky Kloss's boss at the time, had asked him to write it. That explained a lot as Tyrrell had a bull in a china shop approach to the press, which got him laughed at mostly, and he thought fans were a nuisance (like most football administrators) rather than a group to be consulted. My view was that I still felt that it was ill-judged and that it could have been handled better but he was straight with me and we shook hands. It seemed pointless to continue holding a grudge against someone who was an intelligent and patently decent person, who had (in my view) been a little too eager to please someone of suspect judgement on a matter that he ckearly felt deeply about himself.

I suspect that, having met him, exchanged emails and posts on here & read the interview, that he's simply guilty of the crime of seeing things only from his point of view. That comment about the CL shows that he probably doesn't understand the pysche of a City fan and why many of us have antipathy towards UEFA and their rigged and overblown competition. There was an exchange on here between us where I recall he poured scorn on the notion that certain red-top journalists collaborated to agree how they were going to spin Mancini press conferences. But I wasn't accusing him of doing that (and I stand by my story as it came from a very reliable source inside the club) and he possibly thought that because he wouldn't do that, then others wouldn't. And I think my view of events is supported by the club's "no press" approach.

 

[Damocles]

Funny, I think the only thing you can really think of based on that interview is "what a hypocritical, patronising ****".

But then I'm more the direct type.

And to be fair, have you cleared that version of events with Tyrell? Can't take ones word over the other and you should try to find out both sides.

Wouldn't want to end up being Chief Football Writer at the Guardian or anything

 

[Andy Conway]

^^^^^^^^^^^ That really long post by Damocles ^^^^^^^^^^^

 

[Damocles]

I was thinking closer to

[video]https://vine.co/v/MlDnbL7ulFO[/video]