Earlier today, Chris Jack published an article about Sevco, Gerrard and Skrtel, and the story could only have come from inside Ibrox.
Shortly before the word came out of Turkey that Martin Skrtel and his agent were claiming that Sevco’s financial package had come up well short Jack posted an article which tried to let the Sevco fans down gently; his article said the club was not interested in the player and it never had been.
I couldn’t believe what I was reading.
After a whole week of every media outlet telling us that this deal was on, that Sevco was going for broke, here was Dave King’s own pet journalist running backwards with the whole thing. And I knew then that something was going to break on the story that would embarrass the club …
Jack’s article was a pitiful attempt to get in front of it.
I understand the strategy. But why would any journalist go along with it?
People might think I don’t give Jack the benefit of the doubt. Some might think that I should. Well, there’s one way to demonstrate his journalistic nous. Jack claims that sources at the club had told him they weren’t interested in the player. If they did then he has to ask himself if he was lied to, because just about every other journalist is running quotes from Skrtel’s agent who claims to have spoken to Gerrard directly.
That is about as straightforward a rejection of Jack’s story as it’s possible to get.
Whoever fed him that didn’t know Skrtel’s agent was going to talk so openly about the offer … but they used Jack and treated him like a mug just the same, putting him out there like a nodding dog, getting him to write a story that has unravelled faster than Donald Trump’s legal strategy.
He is a joke tonight, to all of his colleagues and to all of his readers.
The best thing he can do is get in front of his own humiliation.
Reporters aren’t supposed to protect sources who lie to them; quite the contrary.
If I were in his shoes I’d be writing one of two stories; one that suggests that the whole Skrtel thing is a scam on the fans or one that suggests that two different factions are at work at Ibrox and neither knows what the other is doing.
Either story would have one big advantage over what he published today; they are both true.
The Skrtel talks are being conducted by a faction of the board that isn’t telling the other half what it’s getting up to. It’s being run by people who know the deal isn’t going to happen but who are happy to get a few days’ good press out of it.
The club is an absolute shambles, but so is Jack’s journalism.
He ought to be fuming.
He has been hung out here like a tarts knickers.
Who can ever take this guy seriously?
His so-called “Ibrox sources” certainly don’t. They treat him with utter contempt.