Today, the big story for some of the press is one of the most pitiful anti-Celtic pieces I’ve seen in quite a while, an article so stinking that it has to be drawing flies.
It says that Celtic is the most complained about club to Ofcom.
If you’re thinking “what does Ofcom have to do with Celtic?” you aren’t alone, believe me.
This dirge ran first in The Scotsman, which is the most click-bait mainstream publication in the country, frequently tricking readers with the use of misleading headlines and a rolling “news “section which simply nicks stuff from blogs and other papers and reproduces them for their own purposes.
But no article of this sort was ever going to stay on there for long, not when the likes of The Record knew they too could get some mileage out of it.
To call this a non-story is an understatement; the reportage of it has to stretch the envelope of fact just to squeeze out a headline.
Technically speaking it’s not even clear that the stats the article quotes are even related to the club itself, but that hasn’t stopped the headline writers from trying to shoehorn that into their reportage.
It’s a ridiculous thing for anyone to want to write about anyway; which team has the most Ofcom complaints?
I mean, what actually is that?
Who’s interested in finding that out?
Do teams get Ofcom complaints?
Why would they?
Ofcom is the broadcasting regulator, so what in God’s name does that have to do with football teams anyway?
I mean, to me this just reeks of a manufactured controversy.
Who is it massaging this story? Those who sought the information or the newspaper “reporting” it?
The amazing thing that comes through in the reports is that almost all the “Celtic-related” complaints come down to a single game of football and a goal Leigh Griffiths scored where he “shushed” Kris Boyd and Boyd moaned about it.
So what are the complaints related to and how do you go from a player having a modest dig at a fourth rate hack to Celtic being the target of complaints?
I marvel at the idea of hundreds of raging viewers actually getting in touch with the regulator to complain because a footballer celebrated scoring a goal.
Shouldn’t the headlines read “Celtic Goal Scorer Sparks Outpouring Of Pitiful Whinging?”
Honest to God, this is really shocking.
Journalism? Does this even count as that?
This is a story I’d have expected only the most gibbering Ibrox blogs to touch … but we’ve got it trending in national titles?
Do the people who work at those papers ever intend to do actual work or what?
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