Media Thread - 2021/22

[chesterbells]

I am absolutely convinced that there isn't a media platform in the country that has any interest in being fair towards City. Individual writers are just doing their jobs. They aren't there (IMO) to serve and present information in an unbiased fashion. They are there to use the internet in the same way supporters do. To get engagements and to stir the pot enough just enough to keep the tribes all kicking against each other.

Adam Crafton is more or less the United writer at the Athletic, so why is he writing a piece about all 49 of City's sponsors and their ties to each other? The answer is so fucking obvious that it insults my intelligence and the intelligence of all City supporters for anyone to try and claim that it was anything but a piece written to get maximum clicks from the Athletic's rag readership and to keep inferring that City are cheating or gaming the system.

The pithy defence which I saw from Adam consequently was something along the lines of "it's an analysis of the new rules". Well, no, Adam, that is not how it was framed. A good writer, someone with a high level education, maybe even Oxbridge in your case, who knows, would understand very very well that HOW you present facts is almost more important than what you present. It's very very easy to frame every single financial issue inside the PL through the prism of Manchester City - why? Because we're the least popular club in the country and we are the ones who have been regularly smeared as being financial cheats.

I've found myself less and less interested in any of the media platforms and their City related takes. Generally it can be taken as read that not a single writer outside of the specific City press pack in the north west (and Martin Samuel) will be writing anything fair or balanced about City. And even inside the press pack you have the likes of Jackson and Ogden who are just rag trolls when they write about City.

As someone who has in the past looked down their nose at the idea that there's an organised agenda against City, having had a bit of time behind the curtain, I can say with some assurance that there is absolutely an organised agenda against City, and it will continue whilst this generation of so called journalists are running the football pages. Rags, scousers, and cockneys, all of them. All with a sense of entitlement to the success we're currently enjoying. Fuck them all and the plastic internet horses they ride around on.

EDIT:

Just seen @Prestwich_Blue reply to Dave. I've no idea what the twitter thread yesterday was or what the conversation was. But it is absolute fact that the athletic embarrassed themselves over CAS in a pretty impressive fashion. We offered to them the analysis @projectriver put together on which way the case would fall and their response was "we've consulted countless experts who completely disagree with Stefan's assessment". To me, that just stank of "we only want opinions which reinforce the idea that City are guilty and will be punished". They hid their bias in plain sight and afterwards pretended it never happened and that City were always going to get off.

Some post that.
The biggest of nails on the most enormous of heads.

 

[Stiff Little Wingers]

quite sad to see a blue sell his soul for fame and pieces of eight .
you are an embarrassment to the fan base.
i bet you loved the red circle piece

I think you are being harsh on a diehard blue. I don't agree with what he said but that's not the point. And neither is turning on him. The wider point is about the media treatment of us and the outcomes that arise

quite sad to see a blue sell his soul for fame and pieces of eight .
you are an embarrassment to the fan base.
i bet you loved the red circle piece

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

I am absolutely convinced that there isn't a media platform in the country that has any interest in being fair towards City. Individual writers are just doing their jobs. They aren't there (IMO) to serve and present information in an unbiased fashion. They are there to use the internet in the same way supporters do. To get engagements and to stir the pot enough just enough to keep the tribes all kicking against each other.

Adam Crafton is more or less the United writer at the Athletic, so why is he writing a piece about all 49 of City's sponsors and their ties to each other? The answer is so fucking obvious that it insults my intelligence and the intelligence of all City supporters for anyone to try and claim that it was anything but a piece written to get maximum clicks from the Athletic's rag readership and to keep inferring that City are cheating or gaming the system.

The pithy defence which I saw from Adam consequently was something along the lines of "it's an analysis of the new rules". Well, no, Adam, that is not how it was framed. A good writer, someone with a high level education, maybe even Oxbridge in your case, who knows, would understand very very well that HOW you present facts is almost more important than what you present. It's very very easy to frame every single financial issue inside the PL through the prism of Manchester City - why? Because we're the least popular club in the country and we are the ones who have been regularly smeared as being financial cheats.

I've found myself less and less interested in any of the media platforms and their City related takes. Generally it can be taken as read that not a single writer outside of the specific City press pack in the north west (and Martin Samuel) will be writing anything fair or balanced about City. And even inside the press pack you have the likes of Jackson and Ogden who are just rag trolls when they write about City.

As someone who has in the past looked down their nose at the idea that there's an organised agenda against City, having had a bit of time behind the curtain, I can say with some assurance that there is absolutely an organised agenda against City, and it will continue whilst this generation of so called journalists are running the football pages. Rags, scousers, and cockneys, all of them. All with a sense of entitlement to the success we're currently enjoying. Fuck them all and the plastic internet horses they ride around on.

EDIT:

Just seen @Prestwich_Blue reply to Dave. I've no idea what the twitter thread yesterday was or what the conversation was. But it is absolute fact that the athletic embarrassed themselves over CAS in a pretty impressive fashion. We offered to them the analysis @projectriver put together on which way the case would fall and their response was "we've consulted countless experts who completely disagree with Stefan's assessment". To me, that just stank of "we only want opinions which reinforce the idea that City are guilty and will be punished". They hid their bias in plain sight and afterwards pretended it never happened and that City were always going to get off.

Great post. Here's what he said:



I didn't agree with the "vast majority" comment. I do agree there are some fans who will look for negatives in everything. We see that on here when someone complains about a piece someone has written, but most of us struggle to see what the problem is. But I'd say that at least 80% of coverage of City isn't fair or balanced. So 20% (at most) definitely isn't a "vast majority".

I certainly don't expect balance from the likes of United Stand or Anfield Wrap. I do expect it from the mainstream sports pages but you get the likes of Delaney, the smug middle-class racists in the Guardian, Herbert & Nick Harris in the Mail, Rob Harris at the Press Association and people like Syed at the times. It's not just that the coverage isn't fair and balanced, it's hateful.

 

[Stiff Little Wingers]

It's impossible to read the output of someone like Pearce and then compare it to what City get. I understand that we're not so desperate we want fanzine type hyperbole in every article, but the gulf between what the scousers get and what City get is as big as the Atlantic Ocean.

Another Crafton defence last week was that he's written about the Glazers negatively. Again, this is something Adam will paint as factually correct, but the nuance is that United are absolute dog shit. Questions around the Glazers are because rags want MORE money spent, MORE big names, MORE bang for their buck. If United were as good as the scousers or City, their owners would get hailed like the FSG mob are.

Literally they know City are the benchmark and therefore their only real purpose when they talk about us is to tear down our success or caveat it with snide jibes.

Spot on. It's a bit like the States 60 years ago where everything American was motherhood and apple pie and the converse for the enemy USSR - ironically enough now the Reds are the good guys and City and their Rabs, the enemy.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

You make some excellent points, as ever. If I might add to your final two paragraphs, the following might apply. I posted these recollections a couple of years ago in response to a thread entitled 'How did the GPC get away with it?' with the 'it' referred to being Ferguson's treatment of the press. Sorry for banging on at length in this response quoted below but I have highlighted the salient sections that resonated with me in relation to your post above. I think you'll get my drift even if you only read those parts!

========================================================================================

How did he get away with it? Maybe the following will give you a clue (and apologies in advance for going on at length)..

In February 2008, long before City were taken over by The Sheikh, I entered into correspondence with a UK football journalist working for one of the Sunday 'quality papers'. This was and remains the only time I've ever done this. I sent an e-mail into the said sports writer, who shall remain anonymous, as I don't think it's fair to quote names in this instance and, this article apart, I've always enjoyed this writer's output and take on football matters. I sent it because I was pretty hacked off by a piece he'd written in advance of the Manchester 'derby' game that month, (in?)famously chosen by the Premier League's computer to take place during the 50th anniversary week of the Munich Air Disaster.

The newspaper article suggested that there may be 'trouble' at the Old Trafford game and that City supporters could not be trusted to behave correctly during the pre-match commemoration of the Air Disaster, let alone the game itself because, as the article pointed out, us City fans were regularly guilty of singing 'Munich' chants and making all sorts of 'Munich' gestures when confronting our arch rivals.

The article did not question the wisdom of the Premier League's decision to schedule the game as it had. In addition, there was no discussion or suggestion of any criticism of United and its historical handling of the Munich disaster aftermath down the decades; rather its focus was on emphasising that 'problems', should they arise, were likely to be down to City supporters and City supporters alone.

I pointed out several things in my e-mail response to the article:

(a) that the suggestion City fans wouldn't behave was based on no evidence
(b) that in fact, I expected City supporters to behave impeccably (as we did) as the Munich Air Disaster was, actually, MANCHESTER's disaster, involving loss of life of City-connected people and people from other walks of life
(c) that I had attended the welcome home celebration for United after losing the 1958 Cup Final barely a few months after the disaster, being taken there by my parents (I was on my Dad's shoulders), aunts and uncles (all Blues) and our neighbours (season ticket holding Reds), all chanting 'We want Matt!' as the team appeared on the Town Hall balcony
(d) that throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s Manchester commemorated the disaster with dignity, especially when it came to the 'Evening News' edition with its 'In Memoriam' notices on 6 February each year, which diminished each year with the passing of time. I can remember kids being chided by adults for speaking negatively about the disaster or making jokes about it
(e) that despite this, still there was a growing dissatisfaction about United's response to the disaster and especially the way players and their families were treated by the club, pushing them out of club houses, refusing to compensate them properly and so on (I gave the example of Albert Scanlon, who my mother would babysit for in Hulme when she was a young girl/woman and who I'd met on a couple of occasions when my parents would go to Sinclair's Oyster Bar in the 70s of a Saturday night, when Albert always spent time chatting with my Mum. He was very upset about his treatment)
(f) that United's callous behaviour post-disaster (apart from the clock at the ground) was compounded by its change of direction in the 90s onward, when suddenly 'Munich' seemed to become a marketing tool for the club post-Stock Market flotation.. yet still no proper compensation for its servants after the disaster..
(g) that the 40th anniversary commemoration in 1998 had put the tin lid on things for those of us who had been around when the crash happened, involving as it did the disgraceful payments to Eric Cantona and his entourage and, yet again, the fans being asked to stump up money for the compensation (finally, 40 years on) to any surviving players
(h) that overall, I believed that United had behaved dreadfully throughout the years since Munich; that, as above, originally what was MANCHESTER's disaster had become hijacked over time as part of the marketing legend that was underpinning the club; and that I'd love to know why our press never commented on any of the things I was pointing out to this particular journalist, never mind all of the problems that this club and a couple of others at the top of the English football hierarchy were causing for the rest of the game with their accretion of power post-Premier League..

The responses I got (we swapped a couple of e-mails) were quite clear. The journalist agreed with every point I made, as above, with the exception of one.. the last one, to tackle United over its practices and those of the other clubs it was in cahoots with both here and in Europe.

The reply came in words to the effect that 'If you think I, or any sports writer, is going to commit professional suicide by taking on Manchester United or Alex Ferguson, you've got another think coming..'

After the game had been played and our fans behaved impeccably before and after we won 2-0, the journalist wrote a final e-mail to apologise for taking the line that City fans might 'cause trouble/be a problem'. I just wrote back to say 'Thank you' but I did also suggest people in the sports media might grow a pair of collective cojones and take on the real issues in English football, rather than simply be the ciphers of the vested interests that ran the game.

Judging by events over the past 12 years, I think I've still got a long wait ahead of me..

I'm guessing that the journalist involved was at the Guardian at that time, probably the same one I had a conversation with some years after that 2008 game. You'd probably be a bit shocked, like I was, at the real story behind those stories alleging City fans would disrupt the silence.

 

[Big Joe Corrigan]

Some post that.
The biggest of nails on the most enormous of heads.

That would be Harry Quagmire’s.

 

[LongsightM13]

I'm guessing that the journalist involved was at the Guardian at that time, probably the same one I had a conversation with some years after that 2008 game. You'd probably be a bit shocked, like I was, at the real story behind those stories alleging City fans would disrupt the silence.

The Daniel Taylor piece was an inside job by someone in the OSC if I remember correctly

 

[paulchapo]

I don't care what any journalist says the majority of them are anti City. This is because of racism as to who owns our club, being paid by Qatar or supporting one of our rivals. For some it's one of those reasons, for others a mixture of them. If they're not slagging us off or printing untruths the sheep of other clubs believe, then they're almost totally ignoring us by burying our match reports or anything positive way down their pages. The occasional decent article is often tempered by some dig somewhere about our vast wealth and unlimited spending power. Then we have the cheerleaders of the rags and dippers as co commentators and pundits. Cunts the lot of them.

​

 

[manimanc]

Where has City Rabin gone off twitter?

 

[LongsightM13]

Where has City Rabin gone off twitter?

He goes offline now and again, usually after concerted efforts by the usual suspects to doxx him