Copying the Daily Star
Lets start off with a crystal clear example of how the football media works. The Daily Star writes a random ‘scare mongering’ story (it’s how you get clicks you know) about Chelsea being on the hunt for Jack Grealish and despite all logic dictating that it’s VERY unlikely to happen, the internet is suddenly littered with every man and his blog running copy cat stories on the Star article.
At least Grealish has got a level-head and a clear perspective on the situation.
A not so Cleverley Premier League
It’s hard to top the Premier League’s foolish and clumsy attempts at ‘engaging’ an audience on social media by soliciting questions from people for a ‘On the Spot’ interview with Tom Cleverley. You know, the guy that some footy fans started a petition against to get him out of the England team.
Did they not see the PR disaster that was the Joe Bennett Twitter Q&A?
It’s like serving up food for trolls on a silver platter.
Such a naive ‘give the plebs a chance to talk to the stars’ approach may work in whatever straight-laced corporate industry the Premier League’s social media manager worked in before they got a job in football, but it just goes to show how out of touch a lot of football industry staff are in terms of supporters (and human nature per se – trolls will be trolls!)
Anyway, lets move on to Media Muppets headline act. Those purveyors of all football knowledge The Sun are at it again…
Graeme Bryce @ The Sun
Headline:
Best by Vlaar
Spiel:
Aston Villa’s best business of the summer was keeping captain Ron Vlaar.
This is the view of ex-Villa star George Boateng, who claims his fellow Dutchman staying put far outweighs the loan capture of Manchester United midfielder Tom Cleverley or the £4.5 million signing of Colombia striker Carlos Sanchez.
Evaluation
1. Are they sure? If this Colombian striker Carlos Sanchez is as good as his international teammake Falcao, then he may prove more valuable than Vlaar to Villa. With Twitter and the internet and all, I’m surprised no one else knew Villa had signed a Colombian striker…
2…hang on a minute, that’s a coincidence, Villa also signed a defensive midfielder called ‘Carlos Sanchez’.
3. Being serious now, it seems The Sun have learnt very little from committing the worst example of football reportage Media Muppets has ever witnessed a few weeks ago. Coincidentally, that also featured a Ron Vlaar headline. Maybe it’s his fault?
Maybe we need to start tagging in Rupert Murdoch on Twitter when we publish Media Muppet articles, so he can start firing a few folk. It’s a regular farce now.
4. Carlos Sanchez played defensive midfield for Colombia throughout that high-profile World Cup thingy in the summer and it’s not as if Villa need another striker on their books. Any football journalist who’s commissioned to write about Villa shouldn’t be making such elementary mistakes. Period.
Media Muppet Score: 9/10
Thanks to Ben Bonness for the heads-up on this article.
If you’ve spotted an article that is just lazy journalism or worse, and perfect for Media Muppets then leave the link in the comments below, DM us on facebook or send it to us via twitter @oldmansaid
The way media is shifting means that regional papers pay a pittance to eager young things with ‘a dream’. The Birmingham Mail laid off most of its senior journalists as it said they cost too much. It replaced them with Boyzone lookalikes and eager beavers on less money than traffic wardens. Probably not what they were told when they were applying for that expensive Media Studies degree.
The national media is lazy, arrogant, and obsessed with the soap opera of the Sky Four. They write rubbish because that is what their readers want. Good insightful writing that offers differing perspectives is getting harder to find – which is why I come here. I like football.
The Sun doesn’t care about Villa – it only cares about the Sky Four – or is it Five now? Maybe six.? Whatever – it caters for morons and so is itself moronic. The media reflects the society that consumes it. I give you Adrian Durham on Talksport as the final insult to good sports journalism.