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By Tony Attwood
As a regular blogger on football part of my work in this regard involves reading other commentaries and reviews in newspapers, sometimes pointing out the contradictory nonsense I find therein. And in doing so one finds some fairly outrageous (as well as some quite bizarre) comments made by players, managers and others. It’s not something one finds in most other areas of journalism – it seems to be a football thing.
Player x is noted as having a certain opinion, or even quoted as saying something particular, but no source of the quote or information is given at all. We just have to take it as having been said. And this has got to be a problem as the New York Times have pointed out in the article “Thierry Henry, Kylian Mbappe, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and the rise of fake football quotes.”
Now as it happens before moving into journalism, I got a university research degree, and in writing a thesis, every quote has its source given, and is checked. The point being one acknowledges those upon whose work one’s thesis is based. Quotes and citations are then checked and validated – you simply cannot get them wrong.
Now I have always know that mass media journalists are less rigorous that the professors at the University of London Institute of Education, but the fact that “quotes” from players and managers are being invented wholesale by journalists has come as a bit of a shock.
I mean I have long been frustrated by the fact that the football media rarely cites the source of a quote, but the notion that football bloggers and journalists are simply making quotes up came as a shock. But there it is in The Athletic, published by theNew York Times.
The problem is that although quotes made without reference used to be seen as probably fake, now most footballer quotes come without a source, so we have no way of knowing who actually said what, and what was invented by the journalist. Neither do we know if the quote was invented with malicious intent, or simply to fill space and pull in a few more readers.
In this regard the Athletic highlighted the case of Jurgen Klopp allegedly speaking against “hydration breaks.” As the publication points out, Klopp had never spoken on the issue at all.
In fact the Athletic reveals multiple instances of such fake commentaries and I most certainly am grateful to them for doing so, for there were several that shocked me. Of course sometimes I would have liked the quotes to be true, such as Thierry Henry arguing that Manchester City should receive more than just a points deduction for recent crimes, but it turns out that comment was also made up by a paper. As was the tale of Ainsley Maitland-Niles talking about taking the knee or not. He’s never mentioned the subject.
So why do so many publications use fake quotes? Most commonly the publisher of the fake story will accept it because it is supplied free of charge, and it looks to be a scoop – in that no one else has run the piece yet. The story can get readership and it fills space – so no one checks, it is just published.
Besides, creating fake quotations can be a lucrative business. Different social media platforms reward engagement in different ways, but there’s always money to be made by garnering attention.
Most commonly, the fake news or comment appears, fills space and gets passed on. If the alleged source says, “I never said that” then usually by then, it is all too late and another story has come along. Meanwhile other publications and social media outlets will have picked up and amplified the story.
And as the Athletic points out, many of these comments don’t have their alleged source rejecting them, because there are just so many fake stories appearing every day, and getting on for 300 blogs each looking for something to say. No one can keep up!
Besidese, there is always going to be someone who will pick up a story showing a player they don’t like in a negative situation, and run it again, so the fake story starts getting ever more coverage. Every blog and every newspaper wants a new story on its site every few hours. (OK not Untold, but you know what I mean).
Of course some people use the approach to support clubs and players, others to denigrate clubs and players – but for most of us – the readers and listeners – it means that the information we have about football and footballers is denigrated day by day. In short, more and more information is available while less and less of it is reliable. We’ve surely most of us had a fellow supporter say, “I heard that….” and out comes a bit of speculation. That is bad enough, but what happens now is this approach on a near industrial scale.
And “industrial” is right for as the the Atheltic article says in relation to a fake quote from take tweet “containing the false Mbappe quotes had been viewed nearly 600,000 times” within a few days.
Here’s another example. Jamie Carragher on the question of refereeing: “The Premier League sells itself as the best league in the world. Yet decisions like this leave everyone talking about the referee instead of the football.”
As the Athletic points out, “Carragher said nothing of the sort, but the tweet has been viewed nearly 100,000 times, with the majority of replies saluting him for being so forthright.
So what do we do in a world where quotes seem regularly not to have been said, as reported? In fact when it comes to football, the best thing to do is forget who said them, and consider, “do I think that is likely to be true?” That takes a bit longer but it can make both football and newspaper reading, a bit more enjoyable.
Tony
I read , and commented on, an article on this site which was about the Fleetwood game tomorrow and published a couple of hours ago. It seems to have disappeared within a few minutes. Put me out of my misery, I’m totally baffled by this and more than a little intrigued???!!!