Anti-Liverpool media

I don't know if it just me but over the last month or so I have noticed a lot of sniping from certain sections of the media in relation to our transfers over the summer. Now I know every transfer has an element of risk involved but it seems that Rafa is being judged as taking risks while other managers are praised for spending money and bringing quality players to the Premiership. One example of this was in the Mirror shortly after Torres had signed. The reporter was questioning the signing by saying that Rafa had taken a risk on an unproven player in the Premiership and that Torres had a lot to live up to considering the high price tag, yet on the previous page Alex Ferguson was being praised to high heaven for signing 'two of Europe's most exciting young players'. Now to me these two players are much more of a risk than Torres as he has played in La Liga for a number of seasons and has 40 odd caps for his country, while Nani and Anderson are relatively unproven even in their own leagues never mind the Premiership. Why can Rafa not be praised for bringing one of Eurpoes top players to the English game?

Another example was on Talksport a few weeks back on a phone in on transfer spending most of the chat from the presenters was positive saying that clubs were spending on quality players who would enhance their squads, but out of the blue the presenter said "Can Ryan Babel really be a £11M player?" Now this is the same player that when linked with Arsenal was one of Europes most exiting young players according to most of the media but now that he has signed for us is considered to be a risk. Why is he any more of a risk than Nani, Anderson etc?

Now I know this is only a couple of examples but there has been more, I just can't recall them now but it seems to me that there is a  bias towards certain clubs in the media where they can do no wrong. I don't know if it just me having red tinted glasses so if anyone agrees let us know if you have noticed this as well

I aggree the media also wants torres to fail due to his price tag. the papers said after pompey that hemissed loads of sitters which was untrue 

spot on mate if the mancs or blue sh*te had signed torres for 20m it would have been deal of the century but because its us its deemed a risk,it seriously pisses me off.babel is a better prospect than nani and anderson we also got him cheaper than they paid for them two but they get praised.im dreading the new season with andy gray and the likes even more up their arse.sorry rant over.

Personally I've always felt The Mirror is biased toward the mancs for years, which is why I don't really get it that often. As for Talk Sport, I never listen to it. But judging by recent events with Carragher calling time on his England career, it didn't do much promotion toward Liverpool fans did it.

I always wonder about the fact we were such a successful club for a very long period of time, if that set a trend for journalism to hold back a bit when it comes back to us. Or, because of the amount of passion our fans have, do they like to stir it up as we all know tabloids like to do.
Sometimes I have to admit I can get carried away by the amount of negative press when I believe there should be some credit where it's due. But it's always very sweet when you remember what's been said from some parts of the media which was negative and we end up coming out on top and proving them wrong.

I think the only journalism I take serious these days is the Liverpool Echo. As for phone-ins then it's usually Century fm's Legends show, or BBC Five Live when Dj Spoony is on.....

The one thing that people love to hear about more than a player succeeding is a highly rated player fall. Wouldn't they have a field day in the papers if Ronaldinho started to fire blanks?

Media have never liked us, as far back as I can remember. TBH much as Liverpool fans know better, The Sun seems to be the majority of peoples sporting bible, even other journalists, so the anti-scouse sh*te that comes out of that rag becomes common thinking.

Redkenny glad you don't listen to talk sport.  Here's an extract from their web age.

Former editor of the Sun newspaper, Kelvin MacKenzie, bought the station from CLT in November 1998 through his company TalkCo Holdings, in which a cull of the squad took place with immediate effect.

Talk Radio continued with its coverage of UEFA Champions League coverage, covering all English teams participating, as well as showing the rest of the broadcasting world they meant business by covering the FA Cup, England internationals and UEFA Cup, as well as England’s winter tours to South Africa, Zimbabwe, Pakistan and India and the British Lions’ tours to South Africa. They weren’t playing games were they?

TalkCo then decided they wanted to shell out for new-headed paper and renamed themselves The Wireless Group and opted to re-brand as the UK’s first national commercial sports radio station – and talkSPORT is born! Maw, ha, ha, ha – it’s alive!

Now you know why they were having a go at Carrgher
 
 

Thanks for that info Oldred.
I wouldn't go near TalkSport with a barge pole now after reading that that scumbag Mackenzie has had something to do with them.

Media are only in Chavs and Scum, even Arsenal and Spurs get positive comments from the media - but US? They slate slate slate, especially that alkie Merson - I hate him no end   

normally one person in the media says something, and all the other idiots with no ideas of their own hop onto the bandwagon.  nobody questioned chelski when they paid £30million for a 30 year old shevchenko, and paid ballack a fortune, but that went tits up, didn't it!!  as for merson, remember how he laughed at jamie redknapp when jamie said we would beat barca?, and  anyone who bet £10,000 on scotland to beat costa rica in italia 90 is a right arsehole in my book.  arise merse ya pr**k!!!

Fcuk the Media the best way we can shove all their comments up their arses is to do the business on the pitch and prove them all wrong,And when we do well they will all be kissing our arses.

I cant wait to here what Andy Gray has to say about our chances ...

I cant wait to here what Andy Gray has to say about our chances ...

What really really really pisses me off more than anything is when I hear Andy Gray refer to Ferguson as " Sir Alex" - it just irritates me sooooo much, just how far up his ar*se is he ?   

The Mirror does have a feature writer who is a big Liverpool fan but in general I find the sports editorial team are biased against the reds in favour of United.

Most of the other papers do also not staffed by Liverpool afficionados.... I actually find The Times quite balanced when discussing the reds but again they do have a columnist who can take the gloss off anthing and everything we ever achieve and clearly holds our supporters in disdain whilst constantly currying to those boys from the Bridge.

Maybe other big clubs also perceive a bias - I would be interested to hear what other fans from other clubs think.  Maybe, at the end of the day as a Liverpool supporter if you read something that isn't declaring us the best team in the world - maybe we naturally assume they are biased against us. It could just be a tribal thing and other fans may feel the same.

I think a lot of newspapers love it when the big clubs fail at something and love to rub it in - surprising because big clubs by their nature have the most supporters and therefore buy more papers.

But then - if we get hammered 10-0 - how many of us are actually going to buy a paper next day anyway? I would imagine 100% of newspaper readers on those days would enjoy reading the papers rubbing it in.

My conclusion - it's not bias - it's just economics!

I've wrote a blog on MySpace, just wanted to post it here for people to have a look!

Reporters: Start Doing Your Job

I'm delving into the unkown here, but the recent newspaper articles have given me nothing but annoyance and disheartenment. I can't pick up the papers without seeing stupid stories that have been plucked from whatever they keep in between their cleary disfunctional ears, as they do not hear the same as us mere mortals.  I would just like to voice my opinion on this, hoping that someone takes it into their hearts.

Upon picking up any paper from The Liverpool Echo to the Daily Mirror or Daily Star, all that we see is 'reports' about our current Liverpool manager, Rafael Benitez. This man has taken us to two European Cup Finals in his 3 years of being in charge, winning one of them in 2005 as well as a satisfying FA Cup run in 2006 where we beat West Ham United in the final. Each season we have been increasingly more consistent in the Premier League.

Rafa has been unhappy about the situation with the new American owners, with them saying they shall not discuss transfer activity until they are over here on the 16th of December. Rafa has stated that the owners do not completely understand the European transfer market. This is basically all of the genuine story.

Yet it has lead to the newspapers printing stories in their pages of Rafa leaving. Of Rafa being sacked. Of Jose Mourinho being drafted in. Of Liverpool stars beginning a mass exodus and leaving the club.  And where have these stories have come from?

Former Echo writer Chris Bascombe has recently joined the News Of The World. He had a lot of access to Anfield while at the Echo, and thus got to know a lot of the ins and outs of the club. Despite his article claiming this newspaper has nothing to do with The S*n (disregarding the high number of articles ending with 'continued in Monday's S*n') a lot of people have branded Bascombe a Judas.  I was not in this camp. I gave him the benefit of the doubt if you will.

Yet an article the other day about the current situation with Rafa Benitez and Gillet and Hicks from Bascombe suggests that he has sold out completely to The S*n on Sunday. He stated that it is only a matter of time before Benetiz will be axed, with Jose Mourinho being drafted in as his replacement.

Not one source is used in the story. Direct quotes of what Rafa said after our 3-0 win against Newcastle lace the article, with no indication of any animosity. Just a feeling that things should be sorted out. Anyone who has seen the interview will understand this. I hope Chris enjoys his 20 pieces of silver.

And yet it continues. More stories of Rafa's departure. One today in The Star from Dave Lyons. Adios Rafa. Not one word of truth. Just fictional articles that seek to make news rather than tell people of goings on.

And I know that tabloids aren't written by completely professional writers. Tabloids plaster 'exclusive' all over it's pages in competition with the papers it competes with. Why is anyone bothered about this? If you read The Mirror, you're not going to see what stories it got before The S*n as you're not going to compare them. You buy one or two and that's that.

Yet as the papers have not felt the season so far has been exciting enough, they have started rallying stories together to try and influence news rather than do what newspapers are designed for and report on what's happening. You never see this in Spain. Papers are there to catch up with what happened in yesterdays sport world.

The papers have basically sacked the majority of managers this season, most high profile being Steve McClaren. The amount of pressure placed on him and the players to perform in England's qualifying group was monumental. It's the tabloid's fault that England aren't going to Euro 2008.

And when a manager does get sacked, the papers bicker about who put the story out first. It's F***ing pathetic, and a sad state of affairs if that's how our news gets delivered to us each day.

I just hope that this situation is sorted out, and the papers can get back to their usual business. Which I can garauntee when the Rafa ordeal is over will be trying to get Sam Allardyce out of a job!

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Good stuff mate.

I have steered well clear of the tabloids for the past week - in fact I haven't picked up any paper apart from The Liverpool Echo and I'm losing patience with that now too.
I'm afraid it's a sign of the times we are living in and it will never get better in the dog eat dog world of sensationalised journalism. The term don't believe what you read in the papers is more strong now than it ever was for me.

Spot on Joey.

The whole situation in the papers have been based without any real sources.  And it's true that the papers get Managers the sack.

It's a F***ing disgraceful surrounding with all these tabloids egging on our nutcase owners to sack the best Manager that this Club has had for at least 20 years.

They ruin, they throw their money up in the air laughing their heads off at the end of the day, knowing they have once again influenced to wards all the on goings.

There is no stopping the papers.

Yeah but Sky Sports News are having a field day... and Rafa truly didn't look at all happy at today's press conference.

That isn't paper speak... that is body speak... he is truly fuming inside.

If you get a chance, look at the guy at today's conf.

I am now truly shitting myself...

Good post- although its hard we just have to take all the rumours with a large pinch of salt.

Bascombe went to the S*n on Sunday in order to further his career. They must of took him on knowing that he'd get crumbs of gossip from Anfield and so I think he's under pressure to come up with a first on LFC no matter how true it is or not. They don't care if its true or not do they? They can distort the truth, sell papers and even if Rafa stays they can turn it around, saying how he saved himself and then sell more papers on the back of that!

They need to build people up and knock them down to sell papers.

The News of the World is journalism (if you can call it that) at its very worst. Absolutely pathetic.

Good post- although its hard we just have to take all the rumours with a large pinch of salt.

Bascombe went to the S*n on Sunday in order to further his career. They must of took him on knowing that he'd get crumbs of gossip from Anfield and so I think he's under pressure to come up with a first on LFC no matter how true it is or not. They don't care if its true or not do they? They can distort the truth, sell papers and even if Rafa stays they can turn it around, saying how he saved himself and then sell more papers on the back of that!

They need to build people up and knock them down to sell papers.

The News of the World is journalism (if you can call it that) at its very worst. Absolutely pathetic.

Don't forget Bascombe put in a word for Carra to have a S*un on Sunday column shortly after he signed-up...

Carra tut, tut x 100...

Yeah but Sky Sports News are having a field day... and Rafa truly didn't look at all happy at today's press conference.

That isn't paper speak... that is body speak... he is truly fuming inside.

If you get a chance, look at the guy at today's conf.

I am now truly shitting myself...

I'm watching it now, he looks tired and drained and even managed a smile but definitely more humble than Saturday - I can't see the anger so much, maybe it's the edited version?

The scenes on the training ground looking good.

I love the guy even more, he's an absolute legend...............

I'm watching it now, he looks tired and drained and even managed a smile but definitely more humble than Saturday - I can't see the anger so much, maybe it's the edited version?

The scenes on the training ground looking good.

I love the guy even more, he's an absolute legend...............

He looked like he did at the end of his reign at Valencia, tired, deflated and angry... do you think Rafa is a humble man to be like that today... of course not. He is raging and fuming inside... it's not nice to be stabbed in the back by your own boss.

Rick Parry hang your head in TOTAL shame.

Ah another blogger in the midst...will take a look when I am home from work