The Ibrox Club Has Fully Turned Its Guns On The Record. Will They Dare To Fire Back?

All power dynamics run, to a certain extent, on fear.

There was a time when every politician and public figure was afraid of the media.

Then something happened.

The dynamic shifted.

When the media’s quarry realised that a lot of those in the profession were heart lazy and only wanted an easy time of it they catered to that need. Once the media had become spoon-fed it became essentially docile. That changed everything.

The fear now stretches in every direction.

Some in the media depend on their handouts.

Some of them don’t know how to do the job without them.

Those who give those sweeties out understand that they have a certain influence over the press now, and only the most courageous of the journalists is willing to stand outside of the magic circle.

Here in Scottish sport, the reality is that Ibrox fears the press but that the press also fears Ibrox, and so instead of one side coming out on top and putting the other in its place there now exists a weird hybrid relationship where some of them co-exist.

Certain outlets now pay for the privilege of being lied to, almost on a weekly basis and they congratulate themselves on still being inside the room.

Others don’t even have that. They are afraid of what they aren’t getting any longer and equally afraid of what happens if they relent and pay up.

Ibrox of course is afraid of a media environment where the press takes back control and starts to turn the screw. Right now their tactic of making the press pay for access works for them in some ways because those who aren’t paying are also the ones who would have been most likely to cause problems for them.

And Ibrox is determined that their lack of access is going to hurt. They are determined to make life as uncomfortable for those outlets as it can.

On top of that, one of those outlets took a shot at the Ibrox fan media and then found itself on the back foot due to an incredibly venomous counter attack.

I cautioned those in the press who were on the receiving end of that pummelling that they need to get on their feet and start punching back, or they would find themselves forever rabbit in the headlights scared of what the Peepul might turn on them for next.

But the media, as a whole, bottled it.

Ibrox once kept The Record onside because they knew that its journalists were the most pliable in the business. Spoon-fed cowards, the lot of them.

Now they don’t even think they need the paper for that.

The Record refused to play ball and pay up for the press conferences.

Then they basically lost the battle that they opened up with the Ibrox fan media.

The club no longer needs or respects The Record. The club now seems determined to destroy it.

This has been a truly humiliating week for all at that rag, but especially Keith Jackson. He has written two “exclusives” now on the managerial hunt and no sooner were they published but the Ibrox fan media asked the club for “clarification” and then gleefully reported that Jackson was talking out of his backside.

So what exactly is going on here?

It seems to me that Jackson has been steered in a false direction.

Twice in a week Jackson has spoken to people at the club and put what they told him in the paper only for the club to leak it to other outlets including the fan blogs and podcasts that his articles were essentially rubbish.

The club is deliberately targeting him and the Record with him.

They are making him look out of touch and ignorant of the true picture.

They are telling their readers and the wider Scottish football public not to believe a word the paper writes because they are not a “media partner” and only the media partners will get that sort of juicy inside information.

It’s a declaration of war.

And The Record has to respond to that with something other than sycophancy. A new manager is going to be announced soon; at this moment in time three quarters of Scotland’s sporting press will not be at the unveiling.

Unless the club changes its tune or the outlets pay up.

Most of them won’t, but The Record is now being given a searing lesson in what will happen to them if they continue to resist, and Jackson is being made to look an even bigger mug than he usually is. This is a power struggle of the rawest type, and it must be apparent to all at that rag what the outcome will be if they continue to lie down and take this beating.

Under normal circumstances I would be enjoying seeing The Record get pummelled like this, and I would take an even greater satisfaction for knowing how shell-shocked some of their writers must be that their favourite club is concentrating such horrendous fire on them. But actually, if that paper is completely cowed and other outlets with them, that creates an even more unfriendly environment for Celtic and for the truth at large.

It’s in nobody’s interests for a major media outlet to be so thoroughly humiliated by Ibrox.

It creates an environment where the press is even more hopelessly compromised and journalists even more afraid and unwilling to do their jobs … and yeah I agree that if these people don’t have the guts to stand up for themselves that they are in the wrong jobs to begin with.

But it’s manifestly unhealthy for the club to have this kind of power over a national title.

The Record sports staff need to get up off the floor. Their lack of access empowers them to do real journalism, the sort that we criticise them for not producing. This is their chance to break the cycle of dependency that has hamstrung their whole profession.

Frankly, if they don’t see that or won’t act on it they are finished.

If they aren’t willing to fight back now, when the consequences of doing otherwise must be readily apparent, then they deserve to be.