Topic: Media are c*nts

[Andy @ Allerton!]

In football, it would be great if the media - whose literal fucking job - could tell shit like it is.

I know they all get backhanders and I know that every pundit and writer and journo is a fan - which is how they got into the game, but long gone are those amazing fellas from years back that could let their bias and support take a step back.

Thesedays the media are fawning titwanking cock nobblers.

Just do your fucking job you fucking bunch of absolute shitwankerydogturdishcunts.

[Sheer Magnetism]

Why are you always so angry about everything?

[Redley]

It’s definitely taken a nose dive in recent years. It seems that smaller, more independent journalists come up with better, more thought provoking stuff and the mainstream are essentially shock merchants seeing who they can trigger. And you’d think it should be the other way around

[Andy @ Allerton!]

Why are you always so angry about everything?

I'm not angry mate. Just very disappointed. I used to love watching the game and when I watched from home hearing the commentary and the facts and stuff, but nowdays I've got all the commentary and the pundits on mute.

They chat absolute fucking shite and offer nothing.

Just report on the game and keep your personal bullshit out of it. To go back years and hear the way they used to address the games - it was professional and a profession.

Now it's all just click-bait winding up and bullshit.

[Son of Spion]

I'm not angry mate. Just very disappointed. I used to love watching the game and when I watched from home hearing the commentary and the facts and stuff, but nowdays I've got all the commentary and the pundits on mute.

They chat absolute fucking shite and offer nothing.

Just report on the game and keep your personal bullshit out of it. To go back years and hear the way they used to address the games - it was professional and a profession.

Now it's all just click-bait winding up and bullshit.

It's the spirit of the age, unfortunately. There's so little professionalism anymore. It's all about the 'cult of personality'. Controversy, opinion, angle, agenda, provocation etc..

Football, especially when played well, is a beautiful thing. A good professional sits back and lets it breathe. Comment on the game in a genuine, unbiased manner. Offer some relevant facts if warranted, but then shut up and let it flow.

Sadly, we're in the age of talking utter bollocks. Everything has to be pored over and analysed to death. Every last drop has to be squeezed from the rag. Simple things have to be made complicated. It makes for tedious viewing, it really does. I try to tune as much media out as I can. It's mostly just noise manufactured for effect.

[Lusty]

I'm not angry mate. Just very disappointed. I used to love watching the game and when I watched from home hearing the commentary and the facts and stuff, but nowdays I've got all the commentary and the pundits on mute.

They chat absolute fucking shite and offer nothing.

Just report on the game and keep your personal bullshit out of it. To go back years and hear the way they used to address the games - it was professional and a profession.

Now it's all just click-bait winding up and bullshit.

I'd love to know how long ago this was because it's been shit as long as I've been watching the game and I'm no spring chicken.

Do you want to go back to the likes of Andy Gray and Richard Keys? Or the xenophobic bullshit that Houllier ('The Frenchman' as St John called him) and Benitez put up with. The fawning over Ferguson and Mourinho.

The thing that brought me to RAWK 20 odd years ago was all the good writing you used to get on here compared to what you had in the mainstream.

[Andy @ Allerton!]

I'd love to know how long ago this was because it's been shit as long as I've been watching the game and I'm no spring chicken.

Do you want to go back to the likes of Andy Gray and Richard Keys? Or the xenophobic bullshit that Houllier ('The Frenchman' as St John called him) and Benitez put up with. The fawning over Ferguson and Mourinho.

The thing that brought me to RAWK 20 odd years ago was all the good writing you used to get on here compared to what you had in the mainstream.

I was thinking of the 70s and 80s.

[Lusty]

I was thinking of the 70s and 80s.

I suspect that's nostalgia speaking but honestly my memory doesn't go back that far.

I would say what we have now in terms of the press and the punditry we have is as good as it has been in the PL era. But it's a very low bar.

[Red Ol]

I suspect that's nostalgia speaking but honestly my memory doesn't go back that far.

I would say what we have now in terms of the press and the punditry we have is as good as it has been in the PL era. But it's a very low bar.

I’m with Andy. Back in the day commentary with the likes of the Brian Moore, Gerald Sindstat and the excellent Peter Jones was succinct, professional and pretty much just followed the game. Nowadays it’s over the top, non stop hyperbole, exaggerations, highly biased and lacking any real imaginative spontaneity. It’s not just the commentators, there’s the endless repeats and multiple camera angles  which are overly used and sometimes even happen when play’s still going on.

To me the biggest (negative) change was the introduction of a second commentator, usually an ex player. This is why we now have Gary Neville being allowed to spout shit and telling us that anything vaguely good is ‘brilliant’, and Jermaine Jenas regurgitating everything he read in ‘Janet and John do football commentary.’

[WhereAngelsPlay]

Problem is that none of them have an original thought between them & if they did have, it's removed at the media training centre that they all obviously go to.

[Cafe De Paris]

I can’t watch sky. Neville Keane Carragher, they are like pantomime clowns at time. It’s so over the top… the bias at times is ridiculous. I understand you don’t like the other team but ffs stop jumping around and screaming like your own team has scored. I don’t understand that.

[Oldmanmick]

With social media, & desperation for clicks by journalists, you're never going to get a level playing field when it comes to reporting. Every half-arsed ex footballer now gets paid for his 'opinion', so you're going to get a wide variation of viewpoints depending on a player's ex-club, or how much he gets paid for being controversial. Back in the day when newspapers were a lot more relevant than they are today, you had some top football writers who were admired & respected for their match reporting. It's all become something of a pig-trough now, with punters doing their best to out-do one another.

[wenlock]

When they started with a pundit too they said it was to give insight in to playing at that level. At the start pundits often stayed quiet until they had something useful and insightful to say, then we got sky.

[Only Me]

The 24 hour nature of everything is a big part of it.

Same with the news - they have a perpetual cycle to fill, so they'll use any available dross or non stories to fill the time.

Add in alarge dose of "the bantz" that all the gen z / millenial social media obsessed dickheads love, and its a perfect storm of mediocrity.

[dikwad]

I watch the footy on Now HK, Optus or whatever cos I can't even bear to look at Neville or Carra, nevermind listen to them

[dikwad]

And why do they all wear suits with trabs, disgraceful!

[TipTopKop]

Same with the news - they have a perpetual cycle to fill, so they'll use any available dross or non stories to fill the time.

Absolutely. One outlet comes up with a catch phrase and the rest will follow repeatedly clucking the same thing.

[Nobby Reserve]

I'd love to know how long ago this was because it's been shit as long as I've been watching the game and I'm no spring chicken.

You don't even have to go back that far. MOTD in the days of Lynam hosting, with Lineker, Hanson, Lawrenson as the main pundits. Barely an agenda or hint of bias. Even when Lineker took over hosting, you had others like Shearer, Wright, Known, Dixon who were more fair and, if there was any bias, then it was restrained or done a bit tongue in cheek.

Nowadays it's agenda after agenda. Sucking Abu Dhabi/'Pep' cock is standard. But they also kiss Man U arse at least as much as when they were winning stuff under baconface.

Not MOTD-related but the starkest example of the massively different approach to certain different teams is the coverage of Darwin and Poundshop.

Incredible the difference.

[Reflexivity]

Absolutely. One outlet comes up with a catch phrase and the rest will follow repeatedly clucking the same thing.

"The medium is the mass age"

[decosabute]

I suspect that's nostalgia speaking but honestly my memory doesn't go back that far.

I would say what we have now in terms of the press and the punditry we have is as good as it has been in the PL era. But it's a very low bar.

Sorry, not having that.

I'm never as pissed off as Andy about refs and the media, but I'd definitely be more on his side here. I feel the standards are absolutely woeful at the moment. Not in terms of tactical analysis etc - that's probably only gotten better over the years - but just in the sheer volume of agenda driven shite being talked.

Everyone is so WUM-my. The likes of Sutton and Neville are always just trying to get a reaction by talking complete fucking shit.

Then you have an imbecile like Micah Richards offering nothing except forced, shouted cackles. The guy is also a prick paid by Abu Dhabi, and yet still rocks up and gets given a platform by seemingly every TV company as an "impartial" pundit. Absolutely baffling and reminiscent of Fox News "objective" pundits.

Also doing my head in the amount of "pundit as fan" shite that we now are seemingly supposed to accept. Neville also heavily responsible here. TV companies seem to be encouraging bias more and more for clicks and engagement. It's awful. Neville has basically just started throwing stuff that used to be reserved for wild speculation in the pub, and selling it as actual informed opinion. Witness him just baselessly declaring the Italian teams United played in the mid 2000s were doping. And people still treat him like he's an authority. He's a strange little wanker talking fucking shite, but because he says it earnestly, somehow credence seems to be given to his prattling.

I 100% agree with Andy that I simply can't sit and listen to most punditry, and honestly can't read most opinion pieces from football writers either. Just so much shite being talked that I can only cope by ignoring 99% of it.

[TomDcs]

Clive Tyldesley is the last of the good ones in my eyes. Ally McCoist does / did a decent job, but they all get suckered in, if just by osmosis, eventually.

[decosabute]

I’m with Andy. Back in the day commentary with the likes of the Brian Moore, Gerald Sindstat and the excellent Peter Jones was succinct, professional and pretty much just followed the game. Nowadays it’s over the top, non stop hyperbole, exaggerations, highly biased and lacking any real imaginative spontaneity. It’s not just the commentators, there’s the endless repeats and multiple camera angles  which are overly used and sometimes even happen when play’s still going on.

To me the biggest (negative) change was the introduction of a second commentator, usually an ex player. This is why we now have Gary Neville being allowed to spout shit and telling us that anything vaguely good is ‘brilliant’, and Jermaine Jenas regurgitating everything he read in ‘Janet and John do football commentary.’

And yeah totally agree with this. Commentary was a million times better back in the day. The voices were far more iconic too (even Tyler used to be a great commentor, prior to his "and it's live!" period) and they just maintained a sort of, slightly-removed objectivity in a way that doesn't happen now. Aside from maybe with England in a major tournament, there was never anything like the same hyperbole or agendas or lazy narratives being peddled back in the 80s or 90s.

[Lusty]

You don't even have to go back that far. MOTD in the days of Lynam hosting, with Lineker, Hanson, Lawrenson as the main pundits. Barely an agenda or hint of bias. Even when Lineker took over hosting, you had others like Shearer, Wright, Known, Dixon who were more fair and, if there was any bias, then it was restrained or done a bit tongue in cheek.

Nowadays it's agenda after agenda. Sucking Abu Dhabi/'Pep' cock is standard. But they also kiss Man U arse at least as much as when they were winning stuff under baconface.

Not MOTD-related but the starkest example of the massively different approach to certain different teams is the coverage of Darwin and Poundshop.

Incredible the difference.

Lawrenson and Hanson were some of the worst with the nonsense that Houllier and Rafa had to put up with. Lawro seemed to genuinely hate watching football but especially us. And who can forget Hanson's famous rant about Liverpool and Rafa about a month before they won the European cup.

As for Shearer being an example of unbiased punditry, all I can say is lol to that

I remember it being said of Andy Gray that his job was not a pundit, he was a salesman. His job was to convince you that the Premier League was great and you should keep watching. It's no different now with the current lot, although I would argue the level of analysis is much better these days.

[boots]

There is no football journalism, when the pundits are now ex footballers. The game is collapsing under its own form of nepotism. There's simply too much money in the game now for it to be considered a serious sport. Its all a show, a drama, a soap opera of terrible acting proportions.

[Son of Spion]

There is no football journalism, when the pundits are now ex footballers. The game is collapsing under its own form of nepotism. There's simply too much money in the game now for it to be considered a serious sport. Its all a show, a drama, a soap opera of terrible acting proportions.

It reminds me so much of WWE, but with less honesty. As a serious sport, neither WWE or football in this country have any real credibility now.

[Red-Soldier]

It reminds me so much of WWE, but with less honesty. As a serious sport, neither WWE or football in this country have any real credibility now.

The thing is, WWE doesn't pretend to be serious.  Football does.

[Jwils21]

Everything is just so loud. Every incident with even the slightest chance of getting some attention on socials is shouted and screamed about by endless media outlets for days. It's a race to the bottom, and the runners are all shock jocks and attention seekers, each trying to be more dramatic and controversial than the last. Sky have been leading the race for a while with their constant narrative peddling and reactionary bullshit.

[Son of Spion]

The thing is, WWE doesn't pretend to be serious.  Football does.

Agreed. That's why I said football is like WWE but with less honesty.