Stuart Brennan. MEN.

[Dr Mick]

If you wrote the article and it carries your name then surely you are responsible for it Stuart?

Running to Peter Spencer to grass up some poor kid in charge of captions who's probably on £6 per hour, shows exactly what sort of a person you are and tells us a great deal about the type of company you work for if that sort of behaviour is considered acceptable. Plus the fact that you've then come out on a public forum to admit that you've tried to get a fellow colleague into trouble is very poor indeed. Disgraceful in fact.

Shite rag loving newspaper that employs shite rag loving journalists.

Stuart Replied:

"If you had even the slightest clue, I would reply, but you are wrong on just about every point. My job is to write the articles, I am not responsible for picture captions in any way - I don't see them until they appear in the paper.
There is no "kid on £6 per hour" doing picture captions - your ignorance of this subject knows no bounds.
I don't mind valid criticism, in fact I welcome it, but stupid abuse from idiots likes you just narks me"



Firstly Stuart in case you didn’t quite realise you did reply and secondly the fact that I “nark” you pleases me no end and that a so called professional journalist uses words like “nark” tells me all I need to know about your limited vocabulary.

Your name is attached to the article meaning it’s your article for which you are responsible. To attempt to pass blame onto someone else, whether that person is paid £6 or £600 per hour is wholly irrelevant. To go running to your editor to try and get a member of your own team into trouble and then announce that you have done this on a public forum is snivelling and despicable. Do your colleagues know what a conniving and underhand person you are?

The fact that you can’t be bothered to review your own article before it appears in the paper clearly demonstrates your lack of professionalism. If my name were to be attached to such an article I would absolutely make sure it was perfect before it went to press, regardless of who else had contributed to it. To do otherwise suggests sheer arrogance and laziness. To display such arrogance and laziness and then to attempt to pass the buck onto someone else and then to go running to your editor to attempt to get this someone else into trouble for your own shortcomings and unprofessionalism is astounding to say the least.

How on earth do you know the bounds of my ignorance? You have absolutely no idea who I am.

The fact that you have taken the time to respond to my comments so forcibly shows that I have clearly hit a nerve and to say that you don’t mind valid criticism suggests that’s probably because as such a poor journalist you are probably well used to receiving criticism by now.

And finally I return to my very first comment. Anyone who considers themselves to be a serious journalist and uses the work “nark” has no place on a student newspaper never mind the MEN.

I stand wholeheartedly by my original comments, in fact I would go further and say the MEN is a Shite rag loving newspaper that employs shite rag loving journalists and Mr Stuart Brennan is the worst offender.

 

[1961_vintage]

So what do you think the headline writer's motivation was?

I would think that uppermost in his mind would be his job, ie write something interesting and/or accurate by all means, but above all get the hit rate up! The proportion of the global 694m that read the site are hardly going to click on something that is essentially pro-City. So he used the facts and represented them in a way that ensured maximum hit rate. Doubles all round!

 

[Anonymous]

"City triumph to 7 and Utd with good away win as both clubs win."

There you go.

The difference between what I have just written and what is actually printed in the headline is that mine is nothing but the truth, whilst the headline in your paper blurs the truth to make people believe Utd were a key factor in both teams scoring 10, which they weren't.

With my headline there, both sets of fans would have accepted it.

Right, so how many people, do you think, went away from that article with the notion that United scored more than 3, or that City scored less than 7? Unless there are people out there with IQs in single figures, I would suggest there are none.
So what do you think the headline writer's motivation was? Do you think he sat there, at his keyboard - on a Saturday teatime, when sports stories are coming at him from all angles - and chewed a pen, and thought "I wonder how I can make it sound like United actually scored more than they did, or that City didn;t actually score seven after all".
Or do you think it more likely that he wrote a quick piece, slammed a quick, cover-all headline on it, and moved on?
I am 100 per cent sure I know which of those two versions is accurate.

You clearly lack the understanding of how influential the media can be, frightening really from a journalist.

Many people probably did, people with little interest in football. Do you know how many people there are out there claiming to be Utd "fans" who couldn't name the man who Alex Ferguson followed? These are the types of morons who bow to lazy journalism, social networking sites are filled with these imbeciles posting articles with similar drivel. Drivel I know and any true football fan would know was made up bollocks but they peddle it.

There is a deep sense of negativity in this country towards City and a lot of it is due to how the media portray us. They highlight our spending whether we win or lose but forget to mention Utd's first team has been slightly cheaper for the last few years, they label our owners as "the Arabs" highlighting their ethnicity in a negative light, this has been going on for a while Stuart.

I have have spoken to people who have very little understanding of football and they have said "I prefer Utd to City because they do it the right way", they haven't a fucking clue and it's the gutter press feeding this bullshit.

"Whoever controls the media, controls the mind" couldn't be more true, well true for the majority of idiots in society who cannot think for themselves. I am not blaming you personally, I think you are positive towards City mostly but have a good look at some of your colleagues because they certainly are different.

And I suggest you never ever let someone with no interest in football write an article about the clubs your main readers support because that was fucking disastrous.

 

[squirtyflower]

Reds use the M.E.N in the argument "is Manchester more blue or red?" By saying that Manchester's main newspaper prefers them. I've had that said to me on a few occasions so it isn't just crazy City fans..

Do they? I have never heard a single Red use that argument, and I have lived my whole life in and around them, including 95 per cent of my family.
However, I have heard, on a million occasions, Utd fans berating us for being pro-City and anti-United.
Have you ever considered the idea that perhaps both you and they are suffering from the same affliction, that you only see the stuff that backs up your opinion?

-- Fri Nov 15, 2013 11:44 pm --

"I happen to agree with you that newspapers contain too much nonsense, but these things are the fault of the readership, not the newspapers - drivel sells."

Not sure I can get my head around that comment from Stuart. Is it really true that if the readers by a publication which contains a lot of drivel then it's the readers fault.

TV is another example though I suppose.There is so much garbage on there under the reality show heading which seems to appeal to a lot of folk but it really is garbage.

Same argument. Do you think TV companies put on the X factor, or Big Brother, or any of the rest of the shite, to shape people's lives, or do you think they simply provide what the masses want?
Unfortunately, soaps and reality TV are big draws, and so bring in big advertisers.
Newspapers have gone the same way, they have to print what sells, and what draws in adverts.

and why do you think the average audience for a number one ITV show has dropped from over 14 million to just about eight million in four years?

Fortunately most people in the country have developed an IQ greater than your average journo

 

[stuart brennan]

the fact that you 'feel' that your opinion holds more than mine weight suggests you lack empathy towards others, not a likeable trait
both opinions are just that, opinions
my opinion was not about the business you operate within, but about the quality of the news reporting, which was pretty poor

But to blame the readership for the poor quality of the journalism, in its loosest sense, in your employers' paper is a joke beyond redemption

it'd be like blaming a surgeon's mistake for operating on the wrong lung to assign blame to the idiotic patient under the anaesthetic for being ill in the first place

I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say. I am saying that my opinion on the way the article was written, and the reasons behind it, holds more insight, because I know the person involved, and I know how newspapers operate. You don't, and that is not a reflection on you.
Do you think that if I offered my opinion on your profession, it would hold as much weight as yours? Of course not, it would be ridiculous to suggest that, and is nothing to do with empathy.
I am not blaming the readership for poor journalism - that was a separate point. I was saying that newspapers are full of what both you and I would call inane drivel because it has been proved that is what sells newspapers.
The surgeon analogy doesn't work at all, I'm afraid.

 

[squirtyflower]

the fact that you 'feel' that your opinion holds more than mine weight suggests you lack empathy towards others, not a likeable trait
both opinions are just that, opinions
my opinion was not about the business you operate within, but about the quality of the news reporting, which was pretty poor

But to blame the readership for the poor quality of the journalism, in its loosest sense, in your employers' paper is a joke beyond redemption

it'd be like blaming a surgeon's mistake for operating on the wrong lung to assign blame to the idiotic patient under the anaesthetic for being ill in the first place

I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say. I am saying that my opinion on the way the article was written, and the reasons behind it, holds more insight, because I know the person involved, and I know how newspapers operate. You don't, and that is not a reflection on you.
Do you think that if I offered my opinion on your profession, it would hold as much weight as yours? Of course not, it would be ridiculous to suggest that, and is nothing to do with empathy.
I am not blaming the readership for poor journalism - that was a separate point. I was saying that newspapers are full of what both you and I would call inane drivel because it has been proved that is what sells newspapers.
The surgeon analogy doesn't work at all, I'm afraid.

I have never made comment regarding either your, or the MEN's, reporting of City's games, mainly because I'm there, so i couldn't give two hoots what others think of the game or how we played because i will have formed it having left the stadium

However the article, by what seems to be a close colleague, was unnecessary and a snide swipe at a club that is doing untold good for the deprived east manchester whilst she swans off to soirees at Cloud 23 and Rosso and has probably never been down to a pub on Cheetham Hill and wasn't even born when some of us were there frequenting the Circus

 

[EricBrooksGhost]

That article about ten goals is one of the crap excuses for journalism that has been criticised on here recently. Don't deflect Stuart to a figment of your imagination and do not patronise with semantics about bonanzas and thrillers. To tie our seven nil win in with their three one win is farcical. Some things are indefensible.

I'll ask you the same question - if your brief, as it was for the website person, to write an article which briefly covered the football events of BOTH Manchester clubs, what would your headline be.
This was not on the City site, or the United site, but on the main football section, which people might go to for a quick summary.
Again, I am not defending the headline, because it was not great, but to use it as evidence of some strange anti-City conspiracy is just wrong

I think it demonstrates a significant lack of understanding of the football supporting dynamic of the paper's supposed readership. As for a joint headline; keep it simple and noninflammatory, it's not hard.
The real point is that it's not often a team punts seven past another but that feat was clouded somewhat by the headline

 

[jimbo101]

Those of us with strong allegiances will always see what we want to see in any media outlet.

Take the BBC.
every Tory thinks it's a hotbed of socialist propaganda whilst the left thinks it's a right wing mouthpiece.

They really can't win.

Fair play to Stu for coming on. Really can't complain about any of his articles about City.

 

[Phil1]

If nothing else, his admission that the paper isn't really in the business of serious journalism but more about sugary articles to placate the X factor generation is interesting. Well I say interesting, it's not, it just confirms that the industry in general cares only to make money. Now in most business's that would be hard to argue against but newspapers? Make enough to keep going, enough to pay costs yes, but the day profit becomes more important than the content, well there's not much point anymore is there?
It's not just the local papers that are guilty, every red top is the same. Gutter press, written by gutless hacks only interested in scandal and the coin that comes with it.
I stopped reading newspapers ( red tops) about 4 years ago, I suggest anyone who wants lower blood pressure do the same. As Stuart so kindly pointed out, the story isn't important, only how many people read it.

 

[blue b4 the moon]

I was keeping out of this thread but a quick question Stuart. Does the rag version of you have to go on the caf to keep the readership figures up?

It stinks bud pure and simple.