Record clickbait hack Pirie has invented a series of “issues” for Tisdale to fix.

Yesterday was a vintage day for Mark Pirie at the Daily Record. Anyone who regularly reads his work won’t be shocked to learn that it was, as ever, pretty dreadful. Pirie is not a serious journalist by any stretch of the imagination.

He’s a clickbait merchant, not someone who turns out work of any real journalistic merit.

Yesterday, he published two separate stories, both equally baffling, which amounted to little more than idle gossip and some blatant fishing for reactions. Let’s break them down, as they both perfectly capture the wider malaise in the Scottish sporting media. They also serve as a snapshot of the kind of guff that Pirie himself is churning out on a regular basis.

I’ll start with the story about Celtic, and in another article, I’ll get into the one that involved the club from across the city. Comparing both will tell you everything you need to know about Pirie’s approach. He conjured up a whole list of issues for Paul Tisdale to tackle at Celtic, while simultaneously writing an overblown, feel-good transfer piece for the Ibrox club. It’s the same old tricks, just a different day.

Celtic announced the hiring of Paul Tisdale, and my views on that are known. I think it’s an excellent appointment, and I believe Tisdale will be a fantastic head of footballing operations. I’m genuinely excited to see what he and Brendan Rodgers will come up with to help drive us forward.

There are stories going around that Tisdale has been involved in an advisory capacity for a while now, helping Celtic behind the scenes, and that’s what led to his appointment. If that’s true, it’s a massive positive because it means he’s already had a look under the bonnet and knows what needs to be done. He’s not coming in to lead some drawn-out strategic review. If anything, he’s already been working on that, so he’s fully aware of what’s waiting for him.

That’s why Pirie’s article, about the alleged seven issues waiting for Paul Tisdale, is not only ridiculous but almost comically unnecessary. Tisdale doesn’t need some hack from the Daily Record telling him what his priorities should be. He’s got a much clearer understanding of the task at hand than any clickbait artist ever could.

To make it worse, a couple of the things Pirie highlights aren’t even actual issues. He brings up a transfer story that might never have been true in the first place, and then he manufactures a situation around Reo Hatate, creating drama where none exists.

Pirie notes that Hatate isn’t currently being selected for the Japanese national team, despite travelling with the squad. I’ve written about that. He also mentions that Hatate and the Japan manager have had a conversation about his future with the team and what he needs to do to get back in. These facts have been reported elsewhere, so Pirie is doing what he does best—copying and pasting from more credible sources.

Sure, Hatate spoke to the national coach, but what does that actually amount to? The player asked what he needed to do to earn a place in the starting lineup.

There was nothing sensational there.

But this is Pirie, and simply writing the facts doesn’t interest him. He’s more concerned with manufacturing a story. It’s classic clickbait territory, and soon enough, this straightforward chat between Hatate and his national coach has morphed into a “Hatate may need to leave Celtic to get international recognition” piece. There’s no evidence to back that up, no suggestion from the Japan coach that such a move is necessary. It’s pure fiction.

If Hatate’s international future hinged on his needing to leave Celtic then he wouldn’t have been selected for the squad in the first place. Take a look at Daizen Maeda—he’s a regular in the Japan team, and he’s playing for Celtic in the same league.

So, what have I been saying on this blog for a while?

I suspect Hatate might be one of the players who leaves next summer, but that’s down to our squad composition and his performances, not because of some bogus international future debate. He’s got talent, no doubt, but he’s not shown enough consistency for me to believe he’s irreplaceable.

When you look at our midfield, with the likes of Arne Engels, Callum McGregor, and Paulo Bernardo, it’s clear that we’ve got a solid foundation. Then there’s Luke McCowan, who looks like he could add something to the squad as well. We need that core group of Scottish players, too, for reasons I’ve covered before.

If we’re going to strengthen our midfield, it’s not hard to see Hatate being the one who moves on. He’s had a decent start to the season, much better than last year, but he’s not exactly setting the league on fire.

However, this idea that his international career hinges on leaving Celtic is pure invention, a Mark Pirie special. It’s a fabrication, and it’s exactly the sort of nonsense I’m sick of reading.

At one time, journalists working for mainstream publications were paid to report real news, not to spin tales and manufacture controversy. But we’re long past that now. These days, outlets like the Daily Record seem more interested in entertaining than informing. Maybe some people find this stuff entertaining, but most of us just find it tiresome and deeply frustrating.

It’s maddening to see how far standards have fallen. There was a time when you couldn’t get away with making up stories like this. If you tried to pass off speculation as fact, you’d be out of a job, just as Jayson Blair and Stephen Glass were.

Today, it seems to be the norm. The more sensational and baseless the story, the better, as far as some of these so-called journalists are concerned.

This kind of sloppy, click-driven approach to journalism doesn’t just erode trust; it also contributes to the wider problem of misinformation in the media. Readers deserve better than this, but until there’s a real shake-up in the industry, I doubt things will change.

And that’s where we’re at.

Another day, another batch of nonsense from the Daily Record, with Mark Pirie right at the heart of it, doing what he does best—stirring the pot, inventing stories, and fishing for clicks. The sooner this kind of garbage is pushed to the fringes of journalism, the better.