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By Tony Attwood
The first thing to say is that most journalists will not admit that they particularly like or dislike Arsenal, because beyond everything else they and their editors wish to be seen by the mass of readers as being neutral rather than prejudiced.
This leads to the fundamental position of the media in relation to football which is that “if it is in the mass media, it’s true, because it is in the mass media.” And the corollary of this is that if it is not in the media, it is a conspiracy theory. Because if it were true, or might just be true, the media would cover it.
And there is a certain logic in this. After all, why should you believe something in a blog run by an Arsenal season ticket holder and a few of his friends? Surely the mass media is more likely to hit on the truth, with all their resources.
Yet there is a secondary issue here. Researching and collecting news is a time-consuming and expensive affair, and virtually all news outlets in all media are in financial difficulty. So this leads to a double problem.
First, there is only a limited amount of news to be gathered and second, there is a need felt by each media outlet to be saying something that the reader cannot find elsewhere.
Unfortunately, those two points are in contradiction of the need for each newspaper and website to be different from all the other newspapers and websites. They want to be different so that you read newspaper x instead of newspaper y. But they don’t want to be totally out on a limb, because otherwise the readership will say, “This can’t be right – no one else is saying that.”
Of course, I know that last feeling very well. The notion that we express that there is something fundamentally wrong with the whole way in which refereeing is run in the Premier League, is completely different from the complaints of supporters that the referees are out to get Arsenal, and different again from the media’s view that everything is withing PGMO refereeing is ok.
But those last two views are related to each other. The media can say or at least infer that Arsenal fans are critical of referees because Arsenal are not 10 points clear at the top of the league. Such an argument reduces everything we write about referees down to special pleading.
Unfortunately, the argument that the fundamental basis of PGMO and its processes are completely wrong is more complex and most media outlets also propagate the view that football is simple. Sometimes so obvious the phrase “bleedingly obvious”.
Consider the lead headline on Arsenal on the Sun’s website as I write this on the morning of 9 February 2025. Under the banner headline “” we have the statement “Arsenal boss Arteta may put White back in squad days after injury return” Followed by “ARSENAL ace Ben White had been sidelined since November after suffering a knee injury. However, White has returned to full training amid the Gunners’ mid-season winter break in Dubai.”
Now this isn’t actually news because yes of course Arteta MIGHT play White, just as he might do anything.” The story has no news content in it at all. We know White was out of the squad and has been recovering. So one might as well say, “Arteta MIGHT” try out some new tactics. Or Arteta will use the session to see how well Saka is progressing to set a new date for his possible return.
But put it in the paper like this and it sounds like a prediction, and the failure for White to return can then lead to the story that “Arsenal’s medical team fail to get White ready for Leicester away.” Thus one bit of nothing leads to a blame game.
Such articles just put up a piece of speculation, which if it turns out not to be so, can allow another piece saying the club has failed. If it is right, the next piece is “As the Sun predicted…”.
But the argument about referees that we have on this website is quite different, for it is against the whole way in which refereeing is structured and handled. We note that is it is run by a secret society that never gives interviews, has no website, and instructs its members never to speak to the media. Plus we criticise the media for not looking at the statistics and wondering why referee x sees 30% more fouls than referee y. Or why referee A sees matches, 75% of which end as home wins, while referee B sees matches where only 13% end as home wins.
By universally featuring the same issues and the same arguments the media can come together and appear to have a position of neutrality so that when they say how awful Arsenal were, or how Arsenal deserved more yellow or red cards than they got, or how lucky Arsenal were, they are perceived as right because that’s what all the media is saying.
Which raises the question, why does the media always seem to need to have a go at Arsenal?
Much of it is tradition. Arsenal were the target of the media when they moved from south to north of the river – Tottenham in particular were outraged by the action and made a huge fuss. The media took it up, and Arsenal’s fans south of the river were fed up having lost their club, while those north of the river wondered just how well the team north London the team could be with the owner having spent a fortune on building Highbury. Some suggested that if Arsenal got away with such a move so could others – and they have. Brighton for example moved from Hove to Falmer.It thus seemed to be something they could all have a bash at. And really, it just seems to have stuck. Over 100 years later they are still at it.
The media need news as you have said but if Arsenal only communicate with the media at press conferences before and after games a bit of twisting of what was said goes on .
Many years ago a friend of mine was friends with Tony Cottee’s agent , at the time he was expected to be transferred to Arsenal from West Ham . Everton were also interested and out of curtesy Arsenal allowed Tony Cottee to speak to Everton , the next thing that happened was TC signed for Everton , the story is TC spoke to George Graham after speaking with Everton saying Everton offered him £5k more salary in which GG replied your more interested in money than playing for Arsenal , he signed for Everton and at the time I’m pretty sure this was never relayed in the news only Arsenal missed out on Cotten , all details suppressed .
If your open with the media it’s twisted , if you say nothing news is made up and the truth only comes out when it’s fact .
Tony
“The media can say or at least infer that Arsenal fans are critical of referees because Arsenal are not 10 points clear at the top of the league. Such an argument reduces everything we write about referees down to special pleading”.
Spot on.
And this media narrative feeds the fans. No matter how many diabolical decisions go against, if we have the audacity to complain all we get thrown at us are things like:
“Entitled” “what goes around” “Payback” etc.
Because of the ‘same old Arsenal always cheating’ mantra endlessly thrown about by the media, it seems every decision against us, no matter how bad it might be, is okay, because it’s what we deserve. No debate. No questions asked. Just get on with it.
Steve Vallins
I have relayed this little tale on here many times. I believe it is as true today as when I was first told this 15/20 years ago.
I had a trainee with me. We were talking football, as you do. He was a Man Utd fan. As I have said many times, I have always found Man Utd fans to be, as a general rule, fair and honest when chatting. I was bemoaning how we were treated in the media. He laughed, and said (I’m paraphrasing here) “It’s all pre planned” What?? “yep. I used to work in the media and it’s a well known fact that negative Arsenal stories and positive Man Utd stories sell papers.”
He went on to say that editors actively encourage their staff to find things negative to say about Arsenal, and if you cant find something, make it up. He swore it was true. He said they saw nothing wrong with doing it. As long as it sold papers, who cares? Nobody takes it serious anyway.
Oh, but they do. As have said before, this negativity impacts other fans, OUR fans, and most importantly, referees.
And as I said, that approach continues to this day, as we saw following Man Utds recent cup win against Leicester. Man Utds winner was clearly offside. Can you imagine the headlines if we had won in such circumstances? Yet this was the headline on the back page of the Sun:
MAGIC OF THE CUP
Okay, they concede there may of been an issue by saying in the sub heading: Harry hails ‘huge’ winner but Ruud is left raging.
They go on to say: The big centre half was OFFSIDE. The Sun reporter concedes it is not a debate. It WAS offside.
Again I say, can you image the headline if it was Arsenal:
RUUD CHEATED BY INJURY TME FARCE
Lucky Arsenal go through with offside goal thanks to lack of VAR
(They always manage to get cheat and lucky in there somehow when it comes to Arsenal)
Okay, the inside is a little less fawning, but that’s not the point. Despite a poor performance and an offside winner, the back page splash is a POSITIVE Man Utd headline.
Is anyone reading this going to suggest that if it was Arsenal we would of seen the same?
Now I’m not for one moment suggesting Man Utd get anything like the fawning press they used to, and understandably so. The media have another Manchester Club to dribble about now. But what I am saying is, as far as Arsenal is concerned the negativity is real, and it has been going on for a very long time.
I read that the PGMOL stated that their use of VAR and the standard of their refereeing is the envy of the world .
Delusional.
porter
It’s propaganda, no more no less, which is pumped out endlessly by the media who are quite simply the PGMOLs lapdogs, especially SKY Sports and their patsy’s Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher.
One who spits at fans and one who was a talentless thug on the field and absolute embarrassment as a manager off it.
Exposes exactly the kind of standards SKY Sports expects. THE GUTTER
@porter Surely that is satire! – You are right they are Delusional
Plymouth Argyle 1 – 0 Liverpool
On the subject of the media, it will be interesting to see how they react to this.
Before I start, Liverpool played a lot of their reserves. A lot. I don’t blame them and I am not having a go. Like I said about us the other night, they have bigger fish to fry. My point is about the media.
Because if this was us we would be slaughtered.
For losing.
For disrespecting the opposition.
For disrespecting the FA Cup.
It would be a shit storm.
Well, lets see what they say about Liverpool.
Lets see if their equivalent to Piers Morgan crawls out of the woodwork slagging Liverpool off. Or any number of so called ‘celebrity’ fans who couldn’t wait to stick the knife in the other night.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Liverpool will get the same crap from the media and al the others we got. Lets see shall we?
Not that any ‘Pilgrims’ are likely to wander onto Untold, it was still remiss of me not to congratulate them on a remarkable win. Well done.
Aston Villa 2 – 1 Spurs
This is something and nothing, but as this is an article on the media I just want to comment on a couple of things said by the BBC commentary team:
“This is a win that keeps Aston Villas momentum going”
Hmm. Villas last 6 games including today: W – L – W – D- L – D
“Against a proper Premier League team in Tottenham”
Hmm. Tottenham have won 4 of their last 15 matches.
“This is now a game that Villa would of expected to win”
Probably true, but doesn’t everybody expect to beat Spurs at the moment?
And finally; and this did make me laugh.
Apparently, and I can only assume this is because Villa scrapped into the top 8 in the CL league stage, they are now “A proper Champions League side”
Yes, they did qualify for the CL last season, but that was the first time for over 40 years. And yes they did scrape in to the top 8. But this season they currently sit 8 th in the league, 6 points off a CL place. But okay, if once in 40 years makes you a proper CL side fine.
And, yes I know Villa have won it and we haven’t, but I’m talking about the media, and how they behave, NOW. This is not criticizing Villa, just drawing attention to how the media talk UP certain teams whilst forever talking DOWN absolutely anything we do.
Chelsea out. Tottenham out. Liverpool out.
Seems we’re not the only toothless abject failures.