I’ve never understood this, why do most papers write stories that are plainly speculation yet the people reading it accepts the story as fact. What really bugs me is that in my mad pursuit of a daily fix of all things Arsenal, I keep getting suckered into reading articles with obviously inflammatory headlines then get pissed off. Although I knew that there was a high probability that the article is rubbish.

Sadly there is a dearth of unbiased in depth, well researched pieces in the mainstream media. The best pieces I’ve read in the past few months are from independent bloggers, and a few journos put out quality content. If those pieces were from a single publication I’d pay for access. What I won’t pay for is the refined techniques papers use to disguise their bullshit as newsworthy.

Whenever you see phrases like “sources close to” or “reports claim” it’s bullshit.

They know that “sources” are protected so they can hide behind that, besides no one will really call them out on it.

Another of those is the word “could”. Of course anything can happen, Cesc could go to Barca or he could go to man City, he could also stay at Arsenal score 20 goals and he could win The premier league, FA cup, and the Champions league. As unlikely as anything is, anything could still happen.

There had been speculation that the roles of Pearce, the England Under-21 manager and assistant to Capello, and the goalkeeping coach Clemence could be under threat as the Italian looked to reorganise in the wake of the summer debacle. —guardian

In one sentence the Guardian is saying

while we don’t even know if Capello is going to reorganize his setup, we can speculate that is he is going to. If he does reorganise then Pearce and Clemences’s positions may or may not be under threat. The truth is we don’t know shit, we’re just writing what we would like to think might happen

The most blatant escape phrase is “rumours”, why in this day and age a newspaper is allowed to spread rumours. They clearly state in the article that it’s rumour, knowing full well that the story will be accepted as fact by the readers as opposed to what it really is —A rumour.

At least I can easily steer clear of these when they are put are in a section clearly marked rumours.

http://bit.ly/dyfxO7

In the odd case where the papers produce quotes that can be directly attributed to a known person the quotes are usually edited to make it more aligned to the tone of the article.

The Cesc to Barca saga really kicked off when in an interview Cesc said

“If I leave Arsenal, it is to play at Barca, before the World Cup I want to know my future”

Anyone can easily take this quote to mean that Cesc is not sure about his future, but is sure about where he wants to go. Until you realise what Cesc actually said was

“If I leave Arsenal, it is to play at Barca, I do not know when it will happen, I am very happy at Arsenal and I have no hurry to leave.”

the “future sorted part” was in response to another question. Dropping the I’m happy at Arsenal and replacing it with I want to know my future adds an entirely different complexion to the quotes printed which although correct was totally wrong.

However the media editors are professionals whose job it is to sell papers, and these people have had to accept that most of the media is consumed via the internet. In this age of 24hrs rolling news and and easy publishing platform for everyone makes difficult for papers, but there’s really no need to put out 600 articles a day just to compete.

I’d willingly pay £2 a week, hell I’ll even pay more I’d pay £5, but only on the condition that I’m not subject to the rubbish content that is currently being put out there. Give me good quality journalism and I’ll give you my cash, but don’t expect me to pay for the same old same old. The times have moved to a paid system yet the quality improved things are same as before and that is not acceptable.

There are good football writers around, and many good articles are printed, sadly they are completely buried under the weight of speculative stories, transfer rumours and noise. Leave the noise and nonsense to the red tops, get the good guys together and give them a platform to publish good quality material and I’d gladly pay for it.