MUEN - what's gone wrong?

[LongsightM13]

Brennan's making most of you look like one-eyed, paranoid, bitter, insecure and angry football goons.

Wonder why that is?

As with most arguments, the truth is usually somewhere down the middle. Some of the comments are extreme, but then again a lot of them contain more than a grain of truth.
While things have improved lately — and Stuart Brennan to be fair is responsible for a lot of that — there can be no denying that it did favour United in the past, often blatantly so.
It is well known that the old Chronicle was more sympathetic to City, while the MEN was the 'United' paper.
Even Mr Brennan seems to have improved since his early days covering the club, when some of what he wrote could be seen as snide, underhand digs at City. For example, printing United fan jokes about City, in full, in the first few pars of his coverage of City's FA Cup parade was at best ill-advised, at worst antagonistic. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, but some I know certainly wouldn't.
The newspaper's policy of brushing a lot of negative stuff from the other place under the carpet is still going strong. There was barely a mention of the cowardly attacks on blue families, shirters and young-uns at the semi final, for example. The '96 wne' tattoo story has not had a sniff of coverage, nor the story about a fan having a United shirt printed with a similarly vile message at a Manchester sports shop.
It will take years for this institutional bias to disappear and while they have made a good start, the fact is that daily regional newspapers in printed form will be extinct within a decade. They will be just another website competing for your attention.

 

[Didsbury Dave]

Brennan's making most of you look like one-eyed, paranoid, bitter, insecure and angry football goons.

Wonder why that is?

As with most arguments, the truth is usually somewhere down the middle. Some of the comments are extreme, but then again a lot of them contain more than a grain of truth.
While things have improved lately — and Stuart Brennan to be fair is responsible for a lot of that — there can be no denying that it did favour United in the past, often blatantly so.
It is well known that the old Chronicle was more sympathetic to City, while the MEN was the 'United' paper.
Even Mr Brennan seems to have improved since his early days covering the club, when some of what he wrote could be seen as snide, underhand digs at City. For example, printing United fan jokes about City, in full, in the first few pars of his coverage of City's FA Cup parade was at best ill-advised, at worst antagonistic. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, but some I know certainly wouldn't.
The newspaper's policy of brushing a lot of negative stuff from the other place under the carpet is still going strong. There was barely a mention of the cowardly attacks on blue families, shirters and young-uns at the semi final, for example. The '96 wne' tattoo story has not had a sniff of coverage, nor the story about a fan having a United shirt printed with a similarly vile message at a Manchester sports shop.
It will take years for this institutional bias to disappear and while they have made a good start, the fact is that daily regional newspapers in printed form will be extinct within a decade. They will be just another website competing for your attention.

Whilst I'm certainly not holding it up as a bastion of superlative City reporting, I just don't agree at all that it has a bias. Well it has - it licks the arses of the clubs it's readership support. If anyone looks hard enough, they'll see bias in any direction. God knows, they get exactly the same criticism from United fans, which speaks volumes.

You, like me, are a dyed in the wool City fan who spends too much time on football forums. So you hear the tales of City fans being attacked, you see the twitter pic of that tatoo. And in your world you are outraged that the local paper hasn't reported them. But in truth, the MEN is a business, and if it can print a story which will sell some copies it will. It will sometimes tread carefully, and it does that with both clubs.

I've seen Utd fans going mad about pics of a City fan with "Munich 58" on the back. I've seen innocent groups of United fans battered to fuck by City fans. And they haven't had coverage in the MEN.

In short, and I mean this respectfully, you are looking at it from a one-eyed point of view. Supporting a football club does that, it blocks out the rest of the world and distorts reality. You are seeing what you want to see. I haven't a clue what these "digs" of Brennan's are, but I would be willing to bet they were figments of a paranoid imagination. You think a journo, who has just missed out on the latest round of redundancy would risk his job and his family's future to make an in-joke? No chance.

Half the MEN's sport's team and half the MEN's readership support City. You are right that the written press are struggling at the moment, and that's why they wouldn't be so idiotic as to not be totally biased towards City.

I'm not getting involved in this discussion in any more detail, I honestly find it embarrassing. Not having a go at you because at least you've tried to be articulate about it. But some of the stuff people write - and believe - is just fucking cringeworthy.

The MEN is City's and United's Pravda. All local papers are for their local teams. Your comments about the Chronicle are irrelevant. If the MEN was such a United paper, why was it's Sports Editor for donkey's years a mad keen City fan?

 

[stuart brennan]

Whilst I'm certainly not holding it up as a bastion of superlative City reporting, I just don't agree at all that it has a bias. Well it has - it licks the arses of the clubs it's readership support. If anyone looks hard enough, they'll see bias in any direction. God knows, they get exactly the same criticism from United fans, which speaks volumes.

You, like me, are a dyed in the wool City fan who spends too much time on football forums. So you hear the tales of City fans being attacked, you see the twitter pic of that tatoo. And in your world you are outraged that the local paper hasn't reported them. But in truth, the MEN is a business, and if it can print a story which will sell some copies it will. It will sometimes tread carefully, and it does that with both clubs.

I've seen Utd fans going mad about pics of a City fan with "Munich 58" on the back. I've seen innocent groups of United fans battered to fuck by City fans. And they haven't had coverage in the MEN.

In short, and I mean this respectfully, you are looking at it from a one-eyed point of view. Supporting a football club does that, it blocks out the rest of the world and distorts reality. You are seeing what you want to see. I haven't a clue what these "digs" of Brennan's are, but I would be willing to bet they were figments of a paranoid imagination. You think a journo, who has just missed out on the latest round of redundancy would risk his job and his family's future to make an in-joke? No chance.

Half the MEN's sport's team and half the MEN's readership support City. You are right that the written press are struggling at the moment, and that's why they wouldn't be so idiotic as to not be totally biased towards City.

I'm not getting involved in this discussion in any more detail, I honestly find it embarrassing. Not having a go at you because at least you've tried to be articulate about it. But some of the stuff people write - and believe - is just fucking cringeworthy.

The MEN is City's and United's Pravda. All local papers are for their local teams. Your comments about the Chronicle are irrelevant. If the MEN was such a United paper, why was it's Sports Editor for donkey's years a mad keen City fan?

[/quote]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Best post of the entire thread - absolutely bang on, and put better than anything I have said.
Are you after my job?

 

[SWP's back]

Tick tock, tick tock. Seems its not only suitable for your overlords lol The sooner the M.E.N goes the way of Today and The Messenger the better.

The better for who ??

Not you as you hold shares so your part in the discussions may be biased.

I like the MEN though and have no shares.

 

[stuart brennan]

Brennan's making most of you look like one-eyed, paranoid, bitter, insecure and angry football goons.

Wonder why that is?

As with most arguments, the truth is usually somewhere down the middle. Some of the comments are extreme, but then again a lot of them contain more than a grain of truth.
While things have improved lately — and Stuart Brennan to be fair is responsible for a lot of that — there can be no denying that it did favour United in the past, often blatantly so.
It is well known that the old Chronicle was more sympathetic to City, while the MEN was the 'United' paper.
Even Mr Brennan seems to have improved since his early days covering the club, when some of what he wrote could be seen as snide, underhand digs at City. For example, printing United fan jokes about City, in full, in the first few pars of his coverage of City's FA Cup parade was at best ill-advised, at worst antagonistic. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, but some I know certainly wouldn't.
The newspaper's policy of brushing a lot of negative stuff from the other place under the carpet is still going strong. There was barely a mention of the cowardly attacks on blue families, shirters and young-uns at the semi final, for example. The '96 wne' tattoo story has not had a sniff of coverage, nor the story about a fan having a United shirt printed with a similarly vile message at a Manchester sports shop.
It will take years for this institutional bias to disappear and while they have made a good start, the fact is that daily regional newspapers in printed form will be extinct within a decade. They will be just another website competing for your attention.

Some fair points, but just one or two things:

The Hillsborough shirt story was published, here: <a class="postlink" href="http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1132581_sports_store_sorry_for_hillsborough_united_shirt" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://menmedia.co.uk/manchesterevening ... ited_shirt</a>

The tattoo story, I don't remember it personally, and maybe it was just simply missed - our reporting staff has been slashed dramatically in recent years.
The reporter who handles this type of story is Mike Keegan, an Oldham fan, and beliueve me he judges stories on their strength, not on whether they are Red or Blue.
He took huge amounts of stick from Utd fans for his tweet about the Utd coach involved in a crash on the way to Wembley last season. United fans cited that as proof, once and for all, that we were the Manchester Evening Blues.
Same as some people on here, they see what they want to see, hear what they want to hear.

On the cowardly attacks, you could argue that we also didn't cover the cowardly attacks on Utd fans as well. As I remember, the thread which had a go at the Utd idiots who had a pop, also contained a link to a video of City fans throwing bottles and stuff at a Utd coach - or did those City fans check the coach first, to make sure it wasn't carrying any kids?
I heard similar stories from Utd fans about being targeted and attacked at Wembley and at service stations.
To my knowledge, there were no major incidents, so I think the paper's decision to concentrate on the positives of a great day for Manchester football was correct.
How can there be "institutional bias" when there is a huge turnover of staff. I am no genius, but I'm bright enough to know if anyone was trying to influence me to be biased one way or the other, and to detect bias if it was in operation on the sports desk

 

[Didsbury Dave]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Best post of the entire thread - absolutely bang on, and put better than anything I have said.
Are you after my job?

Not sure I could handle all the "Rag" bleating if I happened to be seen out in a red tie or something.

I shit you not, I've seen both Jimmy Wagg and Paul Hince accused of being "rags" on this forum. Want to know what Wagg's crime was? He called United "Big Red" on the radio.

You cannot fight logic like that.

 

[SWP's back]

Without getting into arguments about bias, why anyone would read this boring, middle of the road, populist (ie right wing) rag (no pun intended) is beyond me. The sports "journalists" whether writing about us or the Stretford team would struggle to make the cut at the Beano (a fine, well written publication that knows its audience).

Right wing is populist? Best tell The Cellar.

 

[stuart brennan]

I shit you not, I've seen both Jimmy Wagg and Paul Hince accused of being "rags" on this forum. Want to know what Wagg's crime was? He called United "Big Red" on the radio.

You cannot fight logic like that.

My favourite was when KotK editor Dave Wallace told me he had been accused of being a "Rag c***"
Talk about people having Reds under the bed!

 

[oakiecokie]

Tick tock, tick tock. Seems its not only suitable for your overlords lol The sooner the M.E.N goes the way of Today and The Messenger the better.

The better for who ??

Not you as you hold shares so your part in the discussions may be biased.

I like the MEN though and have no shares.

For fucks sake,ssssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

 

[SJT]

If we aren't arsed about the MEN, why is it we're all over this post?
Let's be honest, at least Mr Brennan's engaged the fans on here, acknowledging us
for one thing, as opposed to ignoring us.