Excellent post - and the point you make around the reality of most mainstream media being more nuanced than a simple, binary, reductive all good/all bad picture is an important one.
Although personally there are publications I would categorically draw the line at - such as the Daily Mail, the Sun and the Telegraph - as I simply cannot countenance supporting them in any way given the damage their agenda causes both nationally and internationally. That’s not to invalidate all their writers and the perspectives they cover, but their overall editorial direction is just way too poisonous for me to conscionably give them the clicks.
I read the Guardian on politics and culture, although as their audience is now so heavily weighted towards the US, I do find their editorial is inevitably following the money and is losing what balance it did once have - which is disappointing. But their sports reporting is beyond the pale - a mix of terrible writing, shameless, myopic agenda-driven propaganda, and outright lies make it impossible to take seriously.
There is so little quality sports journalism in the mainstream media these days it’s no wonder people are turning to independent sources for a far more interesting take on the stories of the day - where the relative lack of pressure on purely chasing clicks allows for some actual substance to the writing.
As an example, most mainstream football journalists are completely incapable of actually grasping and relaying tactical developments in the game, so resort to simplified characterisations of managers and Clubs to reduce football to the most basic ‘good guys/bad guys’ storylines that a five year old can relate to from playing cops and robbers with their mates. It allows them to apply simple storytelling forms to a subject they are completely incapable of adding any insight to - which any reader can easily pick up and understand.
And in the current storyline, Liverpool/United/Arsenal are the good guys - representing the soul of the game, while City/Newcastle/PSG are the pantomime villain bad guys trying to break in and steal their crown. A simple, reductive storyline straight out of little red riding hood and the big bad wolf. Add in an appealing undercurrent of racism which always plays well in the UK, and it’s a winning formula which requires no knowledge of the game to carry off!
We’re lucky enough to have some of the most innovative managers in modern football working in the Premier League at the moment, yet our media wastes the opportunity to try and engage them in tactical discussions they’re completely incapable of supporting, and instead reduces them to basic caricatures to fit the mindlessly simplified narrative they’re far more comfortable pedalling.
