Football League Journalism

[Leonickroberts]

I'm not sure about others on here, but I've found the last few transfer windows have been some of the most frustrating, and not for the reasons you may think.

The last couple of years seem to have seen massive growth in incredibly low-quality journalism around football, making it increasingly hard to find the truth on transfers, injuries, and general club info. It's meant that we effectively rely on a very small group of individual journalists (Phil Hay, now Graeme Smyth, Lee Sobot, Beren Cross and Joe Mewis and a few others) who actually attend pressers and have contacts within the club. Meanwhile, sites like Football League World, The72, NewsNow and others hammer out terribly written and misinformed articles that have clearly never been near an editor (or even MS word spellcheck), yet seem to rumble around the internet and get traction, with people actually listening to them.

Some of the broadsheet newspapers provide occasionally interesting coverage of Leeds and the Championship, but these are flawed too in that they obviously primarily cater to Premier League fans; while the Guardian are obsessed with Bielsa (for example) so we get more coverage than other Championship Clubs, and the Mail is still obsessed with Leeds being dirty, none of them ever have reliable transfer or injury news.

Bit of a rant, but interested to know if others feel the same - that the quality of football journalism around Leeds and the Championship, and football more broadly, has plummeted recently in line with the rise of fake news. Also to find out where people tend to get their Leeds news (other than Twitter).

[Another Northern Soul]

I'm not sure about others on here, but I've found the last few transfer windows have been some of the most frustrating, and not for the reasons you may think.

The last couple of years seem to have seen massive growth in incredibly low-quality journalism around football, making it increasingly hard to find the truth on transfers, injuries, and general club info. It's meant that we effectively rely on a very small group of individual journalists (Phil Hay, now Graeme Smyth, Lee Sobot, Beren Cross and Joe Mewis and a few others) who actually attend pressers and have contacts within the club. Meanwhile, sites like Football League World, The72, NewsNow and others hammer out terribly written and misinformed articles that have clearly never been near an editor (or even MS word spellcheck), yet seem to rumble around the internet and get traction, with people actually listening to them.

Some of the broadsheet newspapers provide occasionally interesting coverage of Leeds and the Championship, but these are flawed too in that they obviously primarily cater to Premier League fans; while the Guardian are obsessed with Bielsa (for example) so we get more coverage than other Championship Clubs, and the Mail is still obsessed with Leeds being dirty, none of them ever have reliable transfer or injury news.

Bit of a rant, but interested to know if others feel the same - that the quality of football journalism around Leeds and the Championship, and football more broadly, has plummeted recently in line with the rise of fake news. Also to find out where people tend to get their Leeds news (other than Twitter).

Social media has created many monsters, including 'sports journalists' writing blogs, regular features and hosting podcasts etc. Some of them are good, some of them are lousy, but the issue is, the vast majority are not qualified journalists or they're not employed by any news agency of any kind. I find it all really annoying, but nothing like as infuriating as 'pundits' blatantly making transfer rumours up as their 'need' for attention and relevance is so strong

[Deleted User 728]

There is actually some good stuff happening in the media but a lot of the online coverage is pure clickbait designed to generate ad revenue. Take that 'Glucose Club' lot for example - it's probably some oik on a laptop in his bedroom..

There is good coverage but not always in the written word. There's a few podcasts now that are seeing a lot of serious sports writers taking to broadcasting their views rather than just writing about them.
I listen to The Football Daily, James Richardson's show, the H & J Daily from talkSPORT and a few others like Squawka and you can absorb most of what's going on from them, almost without even realising it a lot of the time.

[Leonickroberts]

I less mean opinion pieces - as you both rightly point out there are plenty of them out there that are really good. I'm an avid Football Daily/Football Ramble listener, and love the Blizzard and Mundial, in addition to Jon Howe and Moscowhite's always-excellent articles. It's the latest news that I really struggle to find a properly reliable source for, and this is particularly obvious during the transfer window, when Phil Hay's Twitter account becomes the fountain of all knowledge. As with all other news, it's becoming increasingly hard to find the truth amongst all the clickbait noise.

[Another Northern Soul]

I less mean opinion pieces - as you both rightly point out there are plenty of them out there that are really good. I'm an avid Football Daily/Football Ramble listener, and love the Blizzard and Mundial, in addition to Jon Howe and Moscowhite's always-excellent articles. It's the latest news that I really struggle to find a properly reliable source for, and this is particularly obvious during the transfer window, when Phil Hay's Twitter account becomes the fountain of all knowledge. As with all other news, it's becoming increasingly hard to find the truth amongst all the clickbait noise.

Indeed it s mate.

BTW the word clickbait looks like Dickbait to me, quite apt

[Leonickroberts]

I less mean opinion pieces - as you both rightly point out there are plenty of them out there that are really good. I'm an avid Football Daily/Football Ramble listener, and love the Blizzard and Mundial, in addition to Jon Howe and Moscowhite's always-excellent articles. It's the latest news that I really struggle to find a properly reliable source for, and this is particularly obvious during the transfer window, when Phil Hay's Twitter account becomes the fountain of all knowledge. As with all other news, it's becoming increasingly hard to find the truth amongst all the clickbait noise.

Indeed it s mate.

BTW the word clickbait looks like Dickbait to me, quite apt

[bgd]

I less mean opinion pieces - as you both rightly point out there are plenty of them out there that are really good. I'm an avid Football Daily/Football Ramble listener, and love the Blizzard and Mundial, in addition to Jon Howe and Moscowhite's always-excellent articles. It's the latest news that I really struggle to find a properly reliable source for, and this is particularly obvious during the transfer window, when Phil Hay's Twitter account becomes the fountain of all knowledge. As with all other news, it's becoming increasingly hard to find the truth amongst all the clickbait noise.

Good posts, I'm the same on all counts, and tend to rely on some of the podcasts more than traditional media for getting analysis these days, not just in football either.

I do think social media has conditioned us all to be plugged in all the time and feel like we should have the latest news, and as much of it as possible, available all the time, and I think that's the main issue. In reality 99% of the chatter during the transfer window is either irrelevant as dozens of moves don't come through, or just plain false, and I personally just try to put most of it to one side in the summer. If a transfer's done and dusted, i can judge it then, but the month of will he/won't he ahead of it usually is of little importance. Online content in particular is now probably about 10% the original information and then 90% regurgitated or aggregated content with enticing titles. Ignore that bubble and you won't miss out on much.