Regarding football, the echo seems to follow the same rough brief that other, larger beasts of the media also follow, incessantly, sickeningly, often irrationally, hyping up LFC, whilst simultaneously patronising Everton. Given this obvious bias I don't read or take seriously the echo myself, but I do worry about the effect that this bias has on other people that don't spot it and also how it impacts the perception of us in the wider footballing sphere of opinion.
Another thing that really grinds my gears about the echo is the coverage of the region in general. As a city I think it punches above its weight in terms of cultural significance (the Tate in the Albert Dock, three graces, museums etc), it has a great scene of restaurants and bars that cater to all kinds of different folk and subcultures; from the student lameo to your sarcy nan, and in general in my opinion it is an excellent city to work in / live in / visit / be around. Yet would you think this from looking at the echo?
No, you get stuff like this:
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I accept that some people will want to read this type of thing, but I can't help but feel this type of reporting does no good for the image the city in the eyes of the national public -
most of the south inexplicably and wrongly think Liverpool is a sh*thole. I think this ties in with the Everton bias: though the individual 'stories' and comments are small, when they are repeated and reinforced time and time again they can become ingrained in the wider public's perception.
With it's long standing history and national reputation, the echo has the perfect platform to demonstrate and support the positive side of both EFC and the city in general, and it simply doesn't do enough.
I guess the only way to fight this is to highlight these issues online as often as possible until it starts to affect the perception of the publication and they are forced to change.
