If anyone wants to listen to an informed discussion from a City perspective about the current media coverage of our club, I'd urge you to listen to the latest Friday Show of the 93:20 podcast. It's freely available now on all usual platforms so you don't have to be a 93:20 subscriber to access it.
In the episode,
@Lucky Toma (who's a freelance football writer),
@BillyShears (who has a background in the music and entertainment industries) and Ally Fogg (a political journalist and writer) talk through what they quite rightly call the "bullshit" in the narratives surrounding the club that are pushed by the UK sports media. They expand on the reasons for this. Of course, many of us know all about these already but which it's instructive to hear outlined rationally by people with relevant experience.
Thus, we listen to matters such as the preponderance of support for United and Liverpool among the journalists concerned, who take the opportunity to vent their disappointment at the current state of affairs in modern football by damaging City's reputation. And there's confirmation of the relentless chase for clicks in modern journalism that causes outlets to pursue the anti-City angle so popular among rival fans.
One thing that grates with me about many of these journalists is the air they assume of being cleverer than other football fans. I broadly agree with the guys' conclusion that some of our media enemies enjoy winding up City fans and the best course is not to engage them. There's a lovely and entertaining little extract where Ahsan says he's not interested in these people because they're intellectually inferior, and this absolutely struck a chord with me: there are several Blues in my close circle who are far, far smarter than any of these tedious, self-absorbed twats.
Now, to some degree I can forgive journalists for doing what they need to in order to make a living. In other words, I'm prepared to call them out here for lies, half-truths and inaccuracies, as well as for misleading statements and omissions, but I won't judge them for it. After all, in my professional life I do work for Russian state-owned companies and people might have views about that (I couldn't give a fuck, by the way, but I can't stop readers from thinking what they like about).
But I don't moralise to any critics or get on my high horse. What grates with me is when those such as the 'WhatsApp Group' try to gaslight City fans, and this is the only thing that wasn't mentioned in the podcast but that IMO is worth mentioning. It's a fairly common thing, too. I noticed an example earlier this week, when the freelance journalist John Brewin posted the following on Twitter:
Now, I'm aware of Brewin's output but literally never recall reading anything of his that I found entertaining or informative, but he seems to think he can lecture us. Note the language. It begins with him casting himself as a detached observer, above the fray and laughing at others. Then he depicts those others as rabid partisans, whose inherent bias prevents them from properly understanding the position - by implication, in contrast to him.
Yet no one with an IQ over 50 could sensibly and genuinely believe his thrust that a bit of mild piss-taking after a couple of heavy United defeats is equivalent to the coordinated and fevered press coverage that City now receive. He goes on in the thread both to portray himself as a victim, being attacked in very mild responses because he doesn't admire City, and, for good measure, to show himself broadly ignorant of the sources of United's (i.e. his own club's) financing in the early '90s.
I'll no doubt give Brewin barely any thought in the days, weeks and months to come, just as I ignored him before. To the extent that he impinges on my consciousness in a brief flash (e.g. if I have the misfortune to see him RT'd on my Twitter feed), it will be simply to recall him momentarily as a dullard and a ****. But I thought it worth highlighting him here as a textbook purveyor of the bad-faith, gaslighting bullshit our detractors habitually resort to.
