Prestwich_Blue
Well-Known Member
As some of you know, I write for King of the Kippax and in my last article I wrote about the power of the rag’s PR machine and how ruthless they were about putting out their version of the “truth” in order to bolster their image as “the world’s greatest club”. So Baconface’s comments after the derby that they dominated the second half and RVP had a stormer, whereas our goal was clearly offside and his comments after the Arsenal game that their fans never boo a returning player were designed to cement an image with the public that we know isn’t true. I also pointed out that Ian Herbert, nominally the northern football correspondent for The Independent, had written one after another story about them (10 out of his last 12 I think it was at the time I wrote the article).
I was contacted by a freelance journalist I know who told me it was pretty well spot on and asked me who’d given me the information. I told him it was my own opinion based on what I’d seen. He then said there was more to it and contrasted City’s handling of the press with the rags’. Contrary to popular belief, freelancers make up the majority of the reporters as opposed to the salaried journo’s like the Custis’s, Ladyman, Herbert, Taylor etc. So if they ban Ladyman for example, The Mail will send someone else or use a stringer. However it’s serious for the freelancers if they get banned as it’s their livelihood and they don’t get paid if they can’t report so they have to toe the rag party line. Personally I think it’s despicable that they could stop people earning a living (unless it was for something really serious of course) but it shows just how ruthless they are.
He then talked about how City and the media interact. He said he felt we didn’t control our press conferences well and let the media take the piss out of Mancini by taking advantage of his relative lack of English and asking questions they know we’ve told them not to ask. But the most shocking thing was that he said that, after our press conferences, the red-top journalists then sit down together and actually agree between them how they’re going to spin it. So anyone who doesn’t think there is a media agenda needs to think again.
I was contacted by a freelance journalist I know who told me it was pretty well spot on and asked me who’d given me the information. I told him it was my own opinion based on what I’d seen. He then said there was more to it and contrasted City’s handling of the press with the rags’. Contrary to popular belief, freelancers make up the majority of the reporters as opposed to the salaried journo’s like the Custis’s, Ladyman, Herbert, Taylor etc. So if they ban Ladyman for example, The Mail will send someone else or use a stringer. However it’s serious for the freelancers if they get banned as it’s their livelihood and they don’t get paid if they can’t report so they have to toe the rag party line. Personally I think it’s despicable that they could stop people earning a living (unless it was for something really serious of course) but it shows just how ruthless they are.
He then talked about how City and the media interact. He said he felt we didn’t control our press conferences well and let the media take the piss out of Mancini by taking advantage of his relative lack of English and asking questions they know we’ve told them not to ask. But the most shocking thing was that he said that, after our press conferences, the red-top journalists then sit down together and actually agree between them how they’re going to spin it. So anyone who doesn’t think there is a media agenda needs to think again.