Here on this site, I’ve had many a pop at Derek Johnstone and I don’t think this is unfair.
He is a terrible journalist.
I’ve also had more than a few digs at Kris Boyd. That was deserved.
He’s not a journalist although he masquerades as one and I consider it an act of fraud every time he submits an invoice to his media employers.
Hell mend them if they’re willing to pay it.
Chris Sutton does not hide his light under a bushel. Neither does John Hartson.
The media is full of guys like these; we know full well what they are, what allegiances they hold, and they are not shy about pointing those out.
They wear them on their sleeves.
At times they get stick for it. Y
ou know what though?
I have a grudging respect for it, and for how they are so unashamedly partisan. Sutton and Hartson criticise Celtic where they have to, which makes them different from Johnstone who never offers a word against Sevco, but there’s not really much doubt about where their ultimate allegiance lies.
Guys like these, I can live with them.
They don’t pretend to be other than what they are, and nor does Neil McCann or guys like that.
Biased? At times, yes. But they are in no way dishonest about it, and that gives you a certain confidence when you watch them that you know exactly what it is that you are going to get. You don’t expect an impartial view.
I find dishonesty hard to stomach though.
I find that hard to take.
And there’s no more dishonest a “media pro” than one who hides his allegiance behind pretending to support a small club.
It’s one of the things that made Traynor so loathsome, an “Airdrie fan” who inserted himself permanently in the rear end of the guy who sent his club to the wall.
It has made Chick Young nearly unbearable, hiding clear-cut Ibrox allegiances behind a supposed life-long love affair with St Mirren … and he’s not the only person who’s done that. At the weekend it made Steven Thompson look like an absolute muppet.
His brief Twitter meltdown was especially delicious in that it was sparked by Brendan praising his alleged favourite team.
You don’t expect when a manager says a team is the best he’s come up against this season that it will spark a furious response from a former player at that side, and media personality, asking why other teams were ignored in order for that praise to be handed out.
Brendan was right, by the way.
St Mirren were excellent yesterday. Only St Johnstone offered as much in a match that I recall. The clubs Thompson mentioned in his foaming tweet – Aberdeen and, of course, Sevco, the one he most had in mind – barely laid a glove on Brendan’s team. As I said in my piece on the match, at one-nil St Mirren had that glorious chance to make it two. Had that gone in we might be telling some very different stories today.
Thompson isn’t a St Mirren fan any more than Chick Young is, or any more than his pal Traynor supported Airdrie.
These guys all work (or worked) for the BBC, but that’s not the problem because Jim Spence was open about being a Dundee United fan and Richard Gordon is an acknowledged Aberdeen supporter. The two guys who run their comedy phone in – Stuart Cosgrove and Tam Cowan – are St Johnstone and Motherwell fans respectively, and Pat Bonner is a dyed in the wool Celtic man and it doesn’t affect his credibility.
Other people want to hide what they are.
I think it’s because that’s a convenient cover from which they can launch the most astonishing anti-Celtic attacks.
Thompson’s outburst was unreal, unless you put it in the context of his being a stung Sevconite who wanted to have a shot at our manager. A couple of media outlets have done just that, with one hack accusing Brendan of “having a dig” at Sevco because of the comment.
I am glad for this one. Thompson has broken cover.
Not that it was particularly good cover, but it’s one he’ll never be able to pretend to wear again.
There is some argument that refs should have to declare their allegiances.
I agree with that.
Is there a case for saying journalists should too?
Some of them would be honest, as some refs would. Others would just lie, but like with refs a lie would be a serious thing, it would suggest that the allegiance was something you’d want to hide, for reasons that I’m sure we could guess at.
I’ll tell you this; I never ask myself why Derek Johnstone writes something.
I never ask what agenda Chris Sutton is following. I enjoy Gordon, Cowan, Cosgrove, Spence and all those other guys who have declared themselves, and I could listen to Graeme Souness talk football all day every day, so this isn’t about Sevco either.
It’s about honesty.
Or dishonesty.
The game doesn’t have enough of the first, and too much of the second.