Once Again, Celtic Fans Need To Remind Keevins Readers That He Takes Them For Mugs.

Know what I find infuriating about some of what you read in the Scottish media on a daily basis?

The implied insult to the audience.

There are people in it who sit there in front of their word processors and know that what they are writing is total nonsense, but they do it anyway. They do it because they think that the average reader buttons up the back.

I think this has sociological, and psychological, underpinnings and I’ll explain why.

There was a time when the media had genuine power.

It was a time before the internet was big, before blogs and alternative sources of information.

Don’t get me wrong, so many alternative sources of information are dire and the internet is filled with so much disinformation that it’s actually dangerous. The mainstream media still, by and large, plays with a straight bat and it’s the best place to go to find genuine experts playing a role. But there is no question that in certain circles – and sports-writing is one of them – that the bloggers have replaced the hacks as the go-to sources of info and opinion.

Look, we’re nakedly biased. People know what they are getting. And whilst we’re not experts on the sport, you only have to look at guys like Alan Morrison at Celtic By Numbers to realise that some in the blogosphere are far better at analysis than their mainstream counterparts could ever hope to be. It’s about knowing where your skill-set lies.

There are people who have been in journalism too long.

They harken back to the days when their opinions could put people under pressure or boost the fortunes of their friends.

The days when Celtic fans booed Fergus McCann because of a relentless negative media narrative … a shameful incident which would never have happened in the present day.

Those people have never gotten over the way their profession has been transformed.

They have never gotten over the loss of that power, the power to move opinions.

And along the way, as the bloggers have taken a grip on the narrative, some of them have finally been called out not just on their years of pushing agendas but on their colossal ignorance too.

Some of these people got by in years past on the lack of any way for us to call them on their lack of knowledge, their dreadful judgement and their appalling stupidity.

Those days are over. We should not let these people away with a damned thing.

When they sit in front of their word processors now they don’t do it to move opinion. They do it to settle petty scores and sensationalise just to stay relevant. Underneath it all there has always been a measure of contempt for their audience, but now they wear it out on their faces. They lie, knowing full well that many of us know that and will highlight it.

And when you think about it, what could be more contemptuous of the audience than that?

To know that you’re full of it, that people know you are full of it, that they will let other people know that you are full of it, but to persist with the lies anyway?

What does that say about the writers’ view of the remaining handful who take him or her seriously?

We know who I’m getting at. He is at it again this morning, in his article on who will win this year’s SPFL title. I don’t care about his pick, I could have told you who that was going to be before he published a word, and nor do I care about his alleged rationale for doing so.

It is like everything else with this guy; the more he tries to explain his “thought process” the clearer it becomes that he’s driven by spite and incapable of objectivity.

He’s thick anyway. It’s been years since he any insight to offer or opinion to give which wasn’t rooted in decades of prejudice and malice.

Even back then, in his heyday, he was abysmally stupid about the sport he’s been paid to cover, which his arrogance in no way hides and in fact just makes more obvious.

I couldn’t care less who he tips for the title, although this contention that we’re playing “pass the parcel” for the title is hilarious since Celtic has had it ten years out of the last eleven.

He no more knows how that game works than the one he’s paid to write about.

But I draw the line at his contention – and this isn’t the first time he’s made it – that “Celtic fans didn’t know Ange would win the league, so how could we poor hacks?”

He isn’t getting away with that. He’s not going to slither off the hook that easily.

Alone, of all the sports journalists in the country, he went much, much further than simply saying that we would not win the title. He is the one who tipped us to finish third, and at one point, early on, talked about us finishing as low as fifth.

That is not getting a narrow call wrong, that is the summit of ridiculousness, the pinnacle of halfwittery, enough to make anyone in the business unworthy of the least respect from either their peers or the audience.

Contempt for the audience reeks off that article today.

Contempt for the handful of people who still take this clown seriously, because his previous comments are all out there, on the record.