The Scotsman has had to undertake a major “hit the brakes, and reverse” over its earlier headline saying that Anderlecht players would face “abuse” at Celtic Park.
The article is about Thomas Buffel; he has given an interview to the Belgian press where he actually praised the Celtic Park atmosphere.
In the same piece, he made some general comments about the language he heard on the pitch in Scotland.
The Scotsman had originally entitled their piece “‘Playing at Celtic Park like facing 14 men’ – says ex-Rangers star.”
But clearly that one wasn’t click-baity enough, and you can’t have an ex-Rangers player praising the Celtic supporters or our ground quite so openly … and so someone at The Scotsman decided that they’d change the headline to something more meaty.
And this is what they chose; “Ex Rangers ace warns Anderlecht to ‘expect abuse’ at Celtic Park.”
I wrote an article about it, slamming them for such an inflammatory and grossly distorting headline.
And what do you know? Within five minutes of my piece going up on Newsnow, they changed the headline yet again.
This time it reads “‘Playing at Celtic Park like facing 14 men’ ex Rangers ace warns Anderlecht.”
You could not make this stuff up.
They’ve embarrassed themselves today with their behaviour.
Fortunately, they cannot erase it as simply as they’d like.
All three headlines, and my own, are clearly visible on Newsnow, along with their respective time-stamps.
What a humiliation for them.
Scotland’s newsrooms, at their very finest, folks.