Wednesday 24 June 2015

Fit and Proper Journalism - The Antodote to Ibrox PR

Goodness me. It turns out SMSM CAN see The Invisible Journalist after all, albeit a week later than the rest of us. Not only can they see @pmacgiollabhain but they can adapt their stenography skills to copy what Phil already wrote last week.  

It would be called catch up if any of them acknowledged the original source of the story, which of course they simply cannot afford to do. It would confound the already creaking, convoluted narrative they have constructed over years, namely that they are the journalists, not some renegade independent who, despite being on several elected bodies in the NUJ, and despite being lauded by UK wide journalists (the Guardian’s Professor Roy Greenslade and Channel 4’s Alex Thomson) is never mentioned by name in the Scottish sports press.

It’s one thing not to acknowledge the expert in the subject of Rangers and Newco’s recent financial troubles. It’s another to pass off Phil Mac Giolla Bhain’s stories as their own.

Look at today’s back pages and see the “King did meet Ashley” scoop. It was indeed a scoop – last week. This week it is a reworking of Phil Mac Giolla Bhain’s ground-breaking work from 17th June. What is most striking is the shamelessness of it all. Don’t these guys realise that we all read this last week? Do they think we’d ‘forgotten it? Did they think no one would mention the glaring fact that this was already reported without any denial from the club/operating company/entity?

What is interesting is Phil’s site gets over 1,000,000 (that's ONE MILLION) monthly views from folks looking for real news about Rangers/Sevco. Why? Because they know that stenography is not news. Congratulations lads, you’ve preserved your precious access to…well…what exactly? At best it’s PR for the latest incumbents at Ibrox.

Now, consider how many people read the stenographers, and then compare that to the numbers reading Phil’s site. What this shows is that there’s a real story here and a real need for journalism to report it. You’d have thought journalists would be fighting over each other to get leads on scoops. So, what is stopping them…


1 comment:

  1. "You’d have thought journalists would be fighting over each other to get leads on scoops." Yes ,Bob, that is exactly what one would think......anywhere but Scotland.Such a beautiful country; such an ugly Press.

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