Nov
27
Which journalists Liverpool fans can trust is a key debate on message boards and blogs at the moment. I want to examine some of the key sports journalists to work out which are more trustworthy – or at least credible – on Liverpool FC than others.
There’s a view amongst Liverpool fans that you can’t trust any journalists. I’m not sure I can change anyone’s mind but in my research, I’d like to discover whether there are some journalists that can be trusted.
Others have a particular those that work for the Sun and some of those, by extension, with other News International titles. I have some sympathy with that – particularly when those fans are Liverpool born and bred. The Sun’s coverage of Hillsborough is at the root cause of this, but there’s also a perception that many journalists (think Boris Johnson) have consistently denigrated the city.
Some fans critise journalists that they don’t like (eg. participants on Jimmy Hill’s Sunday Supplement) - or those with which they disagree by attacking their motives (bitter blue, closet Manc). I hope to bust some of these myths but also highlight when particular journalists have a clear track record which makes their work biased or untrustworthy.
So how can you assess which journalists to trust? It’s not simple, but I’m going to use Journalisted - an index of every journalists’ output – and look at the articles that they’ve written over the last couple of seasons in order to find out:
- Are there themes that they write about consistently? eg. zonal marking, Rafa being defensive
- Do they repeat statements which aren’t borne out by the facts? eg. conceding from setpieces in 2006/07 and 2007/08 or Rafa rotates more than other managers
- Do they speculate about things that haven’t come to pass? eg. transfer speculation
- When they criticise, are such criticisms put in context? eg. Rafa’s net spend
This is the list of journalists I will analyse, so do suggest others I should look at:
- Henry Winter
- Patrick Barclay
- Richard Williams
- Chris Bascombe
- Steve Wilson
- Rory Smith
- James Ducker
- Oliver Kay
- Matt Dickinson
- Ian Ladyman
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