There are entire sections of the US media which have strayed so far from the path of sanity that they’ve become like the left-wing parodies which once mocked them in exaggerated fashion as lunatics and conspiracy theory nut-jobs.
Ten years ago, if you’d watched Saturday Night Live you may have seen hilarious sketches featuring right-wing figures almost literally foaming at the mouth as they ran through the gamut of lunacy; climate change denial, anti-vax insanity and the great replacement theory, and we’d have pissed ourselves laughing. Now nobody is laughing.
Because all you have to do is switch the channel to Fox News and you can see it all on there, for real, every single minute of every single day and millions of Americans get all their “information” from a “news channel” which has become a watch-word for racism and bigotry and, yes, madness. It is horrific and it poisons the public discourse.
Here in Britain, we have any number of desperately deranged characters who would like nothing better than for us to have our own Alternative News, and they’ve tried and they continue to try. GB News is just the first such outlet we’re going to have to live with, but even they are nowhere near Fox levels, because we actually have a regulator here who keeps the crazies from completely taking control of the conversation. Some of the time anyway.
I only mention this because yesterday Celtic fans had to grit our teeth as a ranting, raving, enemy of our club was given acres of media coverage for suggesting that Ange Postecoglou leaving Celtic would be good for Scottish football. It isn’t that he said it, because he’s an attention seeking yahoo and he does this stuff all the time.
No, my gripe’s not with him, as this is what you expect from the Village Idiot, and he’s their poster boy. My gripe is with the outlets, which is most of them, which promoted those views as if they were to be taken seriously, when everyone involved must know they’re not. My gripe is with the editors and writers at national titles who pretended that this was something other than a crap joke and that his career in the media is something other than a crap joke.
I’m still astounded that these people, the editors and the sports editors, the folk who run the newsrooms in this country, don’t yet grasp that he drags their whole profession down at least one rung of the ladder. That his presence amongst their ranks degrades what it is that the rest of them do, like Fox News does with the level of public debate in America.
This guy shouldn’t be on TV or in the papers being taken seriously as offering a neutral viewpoint or even just a sensible one, any more than the BBC should be putting some mouth-piece for an oil industry PR firm on the telly to “balance” a segment featuring a climatologist talking about global warming. That’s not balance at all, that’s putting some industry leech spouting bullshit on the same level as a scientist trying to inform the public with facts.
The sports desks in this country do themselves no favours with this stuff.
They are despised by the Celtic support largely because of garbage like this, with promoting the views of utter goons whose intentions are obvious to even the stupidest person, and it was bad enough when these people only had crap once a week columns in the papers from which to spout their puerile idiocy; now every rival publication also broadcasts their work … and some of them, like this clown, have even made it into the broadcasting studios, where he doesn’t belong any more than a well-trained chimp.
Standards have never been this low.
We have titles in the so-called mainstream media turning out articles every week now about how they “simulated” matches on their consoles.
Bloggers have higher standards than that and I can’t express clearly enough my utter contempt for the so-called writers who do it or the organs which allow them to publish it and charge advertisers for the space around those “stories.”
When the industry in Scotland gives credence to a story like the one we saw yesterday, a story which doesn’t even try to hide the contempt in which it holds everyone who reads it, there are some in the industry who will tell themselves that it’s a joke and the joke is on the reader. But in fact, the joke Is on them because this demeans their whole profession.
To put it bluntly, they are the joke and it ceased being funny long ago.
Boyd = village idiot, blatantly true but his bosses must think similarly, they’ve just got better job positions; I’ve considered this before; why else would they permit this void in print?
Unfortunately, It’s the whole system James and it stinks.
It is great article James – your comments about the quality of journalism are as equally valid for media contributions on politics and public policy. The problem is that opinions and the opinionated has been allowed to dominate coverage of sport in particular and more generally in areas previously graced by professional journalism. The reluctance of media companies to support and develop quality journalism affects the quality of democracies as well as the more mundane area of sports coverage. And the dismissal of the principles of good journalism makes their output no laughing matter
. The job is good journalism is to shine a light into dark places and ask the questions that need to be asked on behalf of viewers. Not something that one sees in Scottish sports coverage. Even PRAVDA would have been embarrased by their craven behaviours
It’s up to our representatives on the board to meet with editors and lay it on the line. Same with the referees and the SFA. But as always they allow Celtic to be used and abused on a daily basis. No backbone from the board. Bring back the bunnet!
Boyd = klown. End of. Should be nowhere near a “news” organisation. However, you’re living in cloud cuckoo land if you think that CNN/MSNBC etc aren’t spouting as many lies as FOX…it’s just different lies, and they spout them constantly. There isn’t a news outlet on the planet that isn’t tainted by biases, some more extreme than others but all are less than 100% trustworthy. In this age of corporate news media ownership you can’t truly take any of it at face value.
They are more to be pitied than scorned, so I don’t I have contempt for them as such, they are just there to be disregarded and mocked.
I suppose that is in a way is contempt.
Aye you’re right James, contemptible bastards, fuck them all.
Boyd. Just an anti-Celtic dimwit and an advert for ‘spray on’ hair. Instant hair out a tin.
Scottish football media has dragged their newspapers, radio and tv into the abyss. They got away with it for a very long time, much like their counterparts in the refereeing fraternity. All exposed for what they are by the advent of social media, not that insightful and honest football supporters have ever been hoodwinked by the lies. Hell mend the lot of them.
……..aye but, hair out a tin, c’mon !
James, I don’t know what to think about climate change but I see that you refer to it it quite regularly so I wonder if you could tell me why, after so much re-cycling, the closing of coal mines and other industries, the banning of coal fires and burning of garden waste: the phasing out of petrol and diesel use, etc., etc., WHY is the weather getting worse? Surely we should be seeing a very slight, positive difference. And why do demonstrators always do their demonstrating in the spring/summer/autumn and stay at home in winter huddled around their heating systems?
As for Boyd: all you need is to ask him is if it would not be a lot better for Scottish football if a manager from Scotland TURNED DOWN a job in England to remain in Scotland, even if it was the coach of Old Firm Sevco.
Because it has taken around 180 years since the Industrial Revolution to reach the position we’re in today and with the more recent Industrialisation of countries like China and India it is an uphill battle. It is a battle we have to start for future generations and it can only be won if ever over the long term.
The Media in the UK are now a disgrace both morally and politically and so called journalism has reached a new low. No wonder their sales figures are dramatically heading downwards.