Mirror Football's coverage of Everton - a conversation with a top Mirror journo

[johnnydawg68]

Convinced Lipton is reading this forum.

Convinced

Lots of journos read this forum. Facht.

 

[johnnydawg68]

They would soon stop printing utter pish if the clubs held them accountable for their jag stories and restricted media access to them.

If he is chief writer then its ace. He's doing a good enough job of making his employers look a sham without much help from us.

Not to start a "The US is better than the UK" flame war...but in this regard...yes. Journalism is a real profession here. There are standards, and when journos get caught making stuff up they lose their jobs. In the UK, the sport pages just seem like a gossip column.

The UK papers are almost complete worthless if objective information is your aim.

 

[Moomin]

Not to start a "The US is better than the UK" flame war...but in this regard...yes. Journalism is a real profession here. There are standards, and when journos get caught making stuff up they lose their jobs. In the UK, the sport pages just seem like a gossip column.

The UK papers are almost complete worthless if objective information is your aim.

I can confirm this is as well. Seen a few documentaries on Newspapers in the US of A, in one of them a journalist could fly and fire lazers from his eyes and everything. The Daily Planet i think was the paper he worked for.

Another paper had a photographer who was proper boss at climbing and swinging.

What do we have, Martin " Bloody " Samuel who has the special powers of looking like a fat tramp with lego hair.

 

[obc]

wow. news in general is crap across the board, wherever you are. heaven forbid they just report the news and let you make up your own mind, but thought that left/right-leaning papers will report differently on clubs based upon their geographical voting trends is beyond belief.

it's sport. cover it as such FFS.

and fwiw, one of the wisest words I've heard came from a rs transplant living in Tucson. when some fan wanted to start some political chants at FC Tucson matches, he just replied "keep politics out of football." amen. politics has poisoned enough of the country (countries). can't we just skip it for a couple hours a week, drink beer, talk then watch footie without having to on about left/right or any of that crap?

 

[Jacob]

Not to start a "The US is better than the UK" flame war...but in this regard...yes. Journalism is a real profession here. There are standards, and when journos get caught making stuff up they lose their jobs. In the UK, the sport pages just seem like a gossip column.

The UK papers are almost complete worthless if objective information is your aim.

I don't think were generalising about journalists or even sports reporters and the British Press is under the greatest scrutiny ever standards wise now post Leveson. Were well off for bona fide news journalists and have good football journalists who prompt opinion by what they say however much it can cause irritation...people like the dreaded Martin Samuels. Paddy Barclay etc even though I don't particularly agree with them. This berk Lipton though is on another level a p/poor disgrace....and if hes the Mirror's chief football writer, God knows what Brian Reade thinks.

 

[johnnydawg68]

I don't think were generalising about journalists or even sports reporters and the British Press is under the greatest scrutiny ever standards wise now post Leveson. Were well off for bona fide news journalists and have good football journalists who prompt opinion by what they say however much it can cause irritation...people like the dreaded Martin Samuels. Paddy Barclay etc even though I don't particularly agree with them. This berk Lipton though is on another level a p/poor disgrace....and if hes the Mirror's chief football writer, God knows what Brian Reade thinks.

I understand all papers are not the same. It does seem like there is no penalty over there for publishing made up stuff though. And yes there are good an bad in all professions, but I'm telling you, as far as sports reporting goes, there is no comparison. Sports journalists here don't do that stuff.

 

[allezlesbleus]

But that's the thing, while I don't disagree Liverpool fans enjoy anti-Everton stories, I don't think positive stories about us would put them off the paper, as long as more positive things were being written about them (like the Echo now for example). If you argue Merseyside is one of the Mirror's strongholds compared to other regions, where's the sense in unnecessarily annoying 50% of the support with your back pages?

I think whatever the issue is, it's with the club, rather than just trying to score extra points with LFC fans. While that's probably an extra perk, I don't buy that's the main reason. I mean, you only have to look at the disdain their non-north west correspondents, e.g. John Cross, talk us down too, which has me thinking it's more an issue with us as a club, rather than an issue with who our rivals are.

Lots of good points mate. I do think that them having more stories and coverage might be enough for the average kopite but I still think. That since the sixties it has been a prolonged and almost systematic attempt to relegate us to the level of tranmere in local and national eyes. They honestly want to be the only team on merseyside and that is reflected in the very grudging share we get even in the local paper never mind the nationals. As for John cross and co!!!! arsenal mad London media will go mad if we rise up again. They nearly choked on their cornflakes in the eighties when having coped with LFC dominance for years they were replaced by.........us until Arsenal replaced us 1988 onwards. Southern press have choked on us for decades although I think you are spot on To say the club has a part to play in this. we were very slow to respond to the media driven agenda that started late 60s and were very snobbish about press and TV. LFC played the media brilliantly for years and we have played catch up for yonks. But I still think that because media is full of pro LFc types that means they are automatically anti efc or patronising at best in the same way that I would always look to put them down if I were a journo and could get away with it. If a big crowd think the same way that sets the agenda. Sky etc.... Is it anything other than a set agenda for certain clubs .. A trend that we are bucking and therefore an annoyance to them.

 

[allezlesbleus]

For the entirety of last season, they actually had a journo, and I use that term loosely, writing a feature/column every Wednesday dedicated to Liverpool. I kid you not. I've linked it on here in the past, but can't find a link now.

EDIT: I'm not talking about ming Kenny either.

I know it sounds paranoid when we go on about bad press because there are lots of examples of creditable comments towards us when we do well. However the general media view of everton is coloured by influence of pro RS left right and centre and grudging London media who have waited years for the gravy train that has given pre eminence to Chelsea, ares enable and Spurs. cannot argue with Chelsea's trophy laden decade or Arsenal overall but they have been playing by different rules for years. But slowly but surely we are gate crashing the party. just don't expect the same media credit for it if we do become really boss agin and win things. It will upset the status quo which they really do not want.

 

[efcfanwirral]

I know it sounds paranoid when we go on about bad press because there are lots of examples of creditable comments towards us when we do well. However the general media view of everton is coloured by influence of pro RS left right and centre and grudging London media who have waited years for the gravy train that has given pre eminence to Chelsea, ares enable and Spurs. cannot argue with Chelsea's trophy laden decade or Arsenal overall but they have been playing by different rules for years. But slowly but surely we are gate crashing the party. just don't expect the same media credit for it if we do become really boss agin and win things. It will upset the status quo which they really do not want.

If it's sustained the media coverage would be much improved. Look at city, if ever there was an agenda to be had it would be against the second team in a city that included an (actually currently) successful mega brand rising up and taking their crown away. That gets treated like a fairytale in the media and United now aren't too different to Liverpool in media bias and coverage.

We aren't treated well for many reasons including all those mentioned about the past, but also because we've basically had zero chance of achieving anything for over 20 years despite the odd false dawn of cup finals and top 4 'challenges' (last season as an exception) because we had a manager who talked us down (and by proxy the whole
Pr effort of the club did the same), was horrible to the media and held us back on the pitch.

We now have a manager who treats the media well, talks the club up, matches the fan's ambitions and actually seems to be delivering on the pitch. Plus as a bonus can attract a higher quality of player AND effectively manage them. It'll take time to repair the damage but it will improve if we continue down this path.

 

[Jacob]

I understand all papers are not the same. It does seem like there is no penalty over there for publishing made up stuff though. And yes there are good an bad in all professions, but I'm telling you, as far as sports reporting goes, there is no comparison. Sports journalists here don't do that stuff.

Its a disgrace some of ours don't apply the same professionalism..and their editors likewise. Agents and players have the ear of some of them far too readily in some cases too for their own "spin"

 

[Zatara]

@MartinSamuel

I can confirm this is as well. Seen a few documentaries on Newspapers in the US of A, in one of them a journalist could fly and fire lazers from his eyes and everything. The Daily Planet i think was the paper he worked for.

Another paper had a photographer who was proper boss at climbing and swinging.

What do we have, Martin " Bloody " Samuel who has the special powers of looking like a fat tramp with lego hair.

 

[atrottel]

Not to start a "The US is better than the UK" flame war...but in this regard...yes. Journalism is a real profession here. There are standards, and when journos get caught making stuff up they lose their jobs. In the UK, the sport pages just seem like a gossip column.

The UK papers are almost complete worthless if objective information is your aim.

Commentary is not journalism, it is opinion.

Peter King, Woody Paige, Bill Williamson, etc. in sports. All 'journalists' in America but what we would call commentators over here.

Matt Taibbi. A damn fine writer on finance and politics but committed in a way which is not usually allowed over here. (John Pilger and Robert Fisk are a few of the rare UK examples I can think of over the years.)

American writing can be great. Kissing Suzy Kolber, for example, can have me laughing away over a sport that I haven't really followed since I was in Denver. But journalism, not as we know it, Scotty.

Let's not even get onto the shouty talking-head print journos on TV, hired for their most extreme opinions.

There are fine journalists at work (for example, I remember the Rocky Mountain News and Denver Post coverage of sexual abuse in the military when I was there) but let's not pretend that all is sweetness and light and that US 'journalists' don't spin things their own way to write a good story or to serve whatever purposes they wish for.

 

[bizzaro]

Just wait till the idiots start the next

Ross Barkley to anyone

Seamus Coleman to United/Arsenal

Leighton Baines to everyone


Rumours again.

Won't be long. They'll even try and sell Lukaku

 

[Blue Wiz]

So what you're saying is, by choosing Everton, Atsu will be saying "at least they're not Villa"?

I rather think he ment that Atsu would prefer to go here since we are a good club and can offer him more than Villa can... and therefore might be a better choise of club to progress his career.

Don't like journalists at all. No matter what they say, they all have clubs they like and clubs they don't. If I go out and by a paper here after a PL weekend, I can find big stories about ManU, ManC, Chelsea, Liverpool & Arsenal, almost nothing about Everton unless they have played one of the big clubs. Journalists know that news about big clubs sell more papers, so a story about Everton buying a player from ManU isn't as interesting as a story about ManU signing from Everton. Fans want to read positive news about their club, and if you can't write anything positive about the big clubs, you can always throw in a speculation story about a star player in one of their "smaller" antagonist clubs wanting out or interpret a qoute into a demand to be sold. It's journalism and it stinks.

 

[mikewex]