Business as usual: reporters lying about Arsenal

There have been some technical issues with this article, so I am publishing it again.  Tony

By Walter Broeckx

A free society is a society in which one can speak out in a free way without having to fear to lose your head in all meanings.

In a free society you have a free press usually that can write all they want as long as it has anything to do with the truth. Of course there are laws in place to limit this. For instance you cannot just say anything that might look like racial abuse or homophobia.  You can be abusive, but not about everything.

On Untold we have been asking a lot of questions about the media. We have said that a lot of them (not all journalists of course) but more than one might expect, have a certain agenda against Arsenal.

You can see this in the way they deal when referees award or don’t award penalties. In the Liverpool game the whole media went berserk when Webb didn’t give a penalty to Liverpool for a foul from The Ox on Suarez. Of course it was a penalty, I have no problem in admitting that. But the whole same media completely ignored the fact that Webb also refused to give Arsenal a stonewall penalty when a Liverpool defender took out Cazorla with a high and dangerous attack on head height and catching Cazorla on the ankle.

This was a fine example on how the media uses double standards when it comes to Arsenal. And no need to give me the maybe it is not against Arsenal but the pro-Liverpool bias at work. Then how come that no journalist or reporter or pundit went crazy about the four non-given penalties in favour of Arsenal in the cup final? Liverpool playing no part in this match so the only answer that remains is the fact that they have an Anti-Arsenal agenda. Or a lot of them have.

And the ones that don’t follow that agenda really are afraid to stand up and say: now hey guys this referee performance was very odd, to say the least, and this ref has done his best to stop Arsenal from winning the cup final. No the ones that think this don’t have the balls to come out with it.

It seems even that for a lot of journalists it is a day time job to badmouth Arsenal. I’m not going to give you the names. I think most of you will have crossed their paths somewhere in the media and will know them. I will not give them more attention than they deserve.

But what happened on Tuesday is really one bridge too far for me. I think a lot of journalists need to take a look in the mirror and I don’t mean the paper by that. Do they really want to risk that little bit of integrity that they might still have amongst Arsenal supporters? So what happened?

This Tuesday morning I saw the first rumours on twitter. They said : “Ramsey needs surgery for the thigh that kept him out for three months this season.” Cue the usual reactions of course. Some worrying and fearing. Others calling for heads from Kroenke down to Nicky’s gran who cleans at the Emirates. Others throwing themselves of bridges, rocks, cliffs, some jumping out of windows from the ground floor.

A lot of uproar and all this because a certain Tom Bellwood wrote an article in which he said that Ramsey needed surgery.

A fine example on how twitter works and how the abuse that some idiots aim at players might reach this player was that apparently Ramsey who is on holiday for the moment and who was in Monaco last weekend got told about the fear and discussion that has risen from this article.

And so Aaron Ramsey, the nice gentleman he is, decided it was time to set things straight. And he tweeted this message: Aaron Ramsey ‏@aaronramsey 28m
“Please ignore any stories about me needing surgery. They are completely false. I’m enjoying my summer and already can’t wait for pre-season.”

And shortly after that suddenly the article disappeared it seems. I couldn’t find it anyway and to be honest I didn’t look for it before as I don’t want to give them any free clicks with their bullshit stories. I did however check their website while writing this article (sorry had to) and no sign of the article.

But I could find more than one of these messages on my timeline on twitter: “Daily Mail’s @TomBellwood writes an article about @aaronramsey needing surgery. Player dismisses the story, article deleted. Scum paper”

Making the liar come out with a statement on twitter saying: “@tombellwood : The story said he’s seeing a specialist about his groin. Surgery an option. Relax.”

Twisting and turning like a snake after being caught with his hands in the till one might say.

So the moral of this story is clear. Never trust journalists. They don’t mind to lying if it builds an audience. And when they get caught they delete the article and come up with an excuse. Now if I write something wrong in English I think most people will forgive me as I am not a native English speaker. But I do think that an English journalist should be aware of the difference between saying: “he needs surgery” and “there might be a slight chance that he could need surgery”.

Even I can see the difference between these two things. So should he. But the thing is that as it involves Arsenal and as we know against Arsenal all is possible and allowed we just throw it in the face of the Arsenal supporters. Let’s get them worried. Hey, some might ask Wenger to be sacked as he obviously is to blame for this injury and we might get some uproar from Arsenal fans who have been too happy for his liking.

Well nice to see that Aaron Ramsey in person spoilt his day. And good to see that Ramsey is letting the supporters know how things really stand.

May I also add that the reporter first spoke about a thigh and then about a groin. So he sure isn’t a medical expert also. Just another bit of noise. And making noise surrounding Arsenal seems to be a profitable job.