The Daily Record published a piece today which appeared to link Leigh Griffiths and his home with a firebomb attack.
This is grossly irresponsible from the paper.
Griffiths has enough scrutiny without this kind of nonsense.
Scotland has enough issues without a major national newspaper recklessly stirring the soup.
A report which claimed that the driveway in which the car was parked belongs to the player is still online right now, although the police have flatly denied that this is the case. It is precisely this type of unreliable reportage which makes people detest the mainstream media.
I mean, who needs people out there stirring up hate and sewing distrust amongst communities when national newspapers are happy to put two and two together and make five?
Who needs people promoting bigotry when the press is hinting that we’re on the brink of civil war over what a footballer does on social media?
I mean that’s the unspoken message from the coverage, and it is nonsense.
You’d think the media would learn from the Alfredo Morelos “car-bomb” garbage which had the Ibrox sites in a frenzy and Scotland looking like some ancillary province of the North of Ireland in the 70’s and 80’s.
There ought to have been a reckoning when that one blew up in the press’s face, and hard questions should have been asked about where the disinformation came from.
Who is responsible for this particular story? Heads should roll as a result of it.
We can all be thankful that this has proved erroneous, but in some ways this is like a warning alarm going off.
Griffiths gets more bile and abuse than just about anybody on social media, and there is a deep-seated grievance against him out there and a tendency to blame him for the appalling treatment he’s subjected to … that has echoes, of course, of what the manager himself has gone through at times at the hands of some of our national degenerates.
In some ways this story simply highlights the unbelievable level of malice that bubbles away out there against our player, and indeed our whole community, from some of the less rational Peepul.
A number of their social media sites and personalities have falsely accused our striker of mocking Kyle Lafferty’s bereavement last week … an obscene charge many of them knew full well was not an accurate reflection of the player’s intent.
I was going to highlight one of the more demented pieces last night, but I’m choosing today not to, in light of The Record’s irresponsibility.
The less petrol we pour on these flames the better.
But the rising levels of hate out there are dangerous, which makes both makes The Record’s reporting all the worse and yet at the same time reminds us of the stakes.
That doesn’t offer an excuse for the paper or its subsidiaries for running this reckless, unverified dreck, but it does bring home the point that the toxic nature of social media around football in Scotland is a subject that badly needs addressing and bringing under control.
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