Birmingham Mail and Villa coverage

[Dave]

Sorry, I must have imagined that you've just spent an hour or so defending them.

No, I've spent parts of an hour explaining that I think journalism is better when it is balanced, not partisan. If you've decided to take from that I want to have Bill Howell's children then that's not my problem.

But any time that you want to let me know where I've said that I'm "perfectly happy with them being blatantly unbalanced, provided it's against us", feel free to point it out.

There's the way you compare one report of a newspaper story which they themselves call gossip and consider it equal to one of their reporters talking about selling Benteke and a lengthy piece from John Barnes on the same subject for a start.

I've said that I agree with one opinion piece that says that if/when Benteke moves then it won't just be because he can earn more money. There's an extremely similar piece here. I agree with the gist (although not some of the minor details) of that one as well, even if it doesn't come with an inflammatory headline to generate advertising revenue.

I've not mentioned the John Barnes piece. Anywhere. Again, you're jumping to conclusions that aren't there.

If you're interested, I think it's a pointless piece. Who cares what John Barnes thinks about the situation? If they'd taken his comments and asked a couple of former Villa players what they thought, or what they'd do in a similar situation then that might be relevant or interesting. It might not, but at least it wouldn't be just lazily repeating the obvious.

[olaftab]

I think the best line I've ever written was "When I heard George Gavin was working for the Mail I naturally assumed he'd got a paper round."

Oh yes dear old George Gavin I wonder what's he up to these days? Probably selling or trying to sell the Mail at New Street kiosk?

[olaftab]

one of their reporters talking about selling Benteke and a lengthy piece from John Barnes on the same subject for a start.

Well it could be construed as a "loyal local paper highlighting the risk the Club and fans face in the near future"?

[Dave]

Why is that a higher standard though? I am genuinely curious. The Mail & WM are local media. I would hope and expect that local media want the best for the area and local teams, certainly thats the way most local papers operate. Here in the USA there is universal support for local teams. I mean what would the the "balance" in sports be for? People stopping off in Birmingham motorway services looking for general football coverage and not wanting to see Birmingham area teams covered supportively?

I am not being antagonistic I am genuinely curious why you wouldn't want the Mail to be supportive of all the local teams? Balanced should be for national media surely?

Apologies for the delay in replying - meant to last night before the laptop battery died.

The club have their own media for universal positivity - the official site, the matchday programme etc. The supporters have their own platform to give their opinions - fanzines and websites such as this one and others. I don't see what benefit it would be to have the local press as just another set of cheerleaders.

If there were something newsworthy that reflected negatively on the club, would you want it to be reported? To give a couple of examples, if the Mail had got hold of the Cowans/Dunne/Collins incident from a few years back, would you want them to not mention it? Or the more recent Culverhouse/Karsa kerfuffle. Neither incident showed the club if a particularly positive light, but when something like that happens then I don't think there are many supporters who wouldn't want to be aware of it.

There's also the the grey area of what actually constitutes supportive coverage. PWS gave the example earlier in the thread that while Carson Yeung was running Blues into the ground the Mail barely reported on the mess that he was making of it. Is that supporting the club by not calling the owners out on the shit job that they were doing?

If we were ever in a similar position I wouldn't want the local media running "everything is fine" stories, I'd want them to be criticizing wherever and whenever it was necessary.

[dave.woodhall]

one of their reporters talking about selling Benteke and a lengthy piece from John Barnes on the same subject for a start.

Well it could be construed as a "loyal local paper highlighting the risk the Club and fans face in the near future"?

Or it could be seen as part of an ongoing series of negative stories.

[placeforparks]

I think the best line I've ever written was "When I heard George Gavin was working for the Mail I naturally assumed he'd got a paper round."

Oh yes dear old George Gavin I wonder what's he up to these days? Probably selling or trying to sell the Mail at New Street kiosk?

he does the football league on sky sports.

[Tokyo Sexwhale]

An opinion piece from the local music journalist. Which begs the question, why ask him to write a negative opinion about Villa (when he doesn't seem to write anything else about sports) and when you see how awful it is, why publish it?

It's the article about John Barnes thinking Benteke should go to Liverpool that I don't really get.  Why an earth is that appearing on the website of a Birmingham paper?

I reckon it's just a "Liverpool Echo" article, reposted to the Mail site.  Free content.

It's been a couple of years since I've read The Mail, and it was a pretty thin read; they seemingly had only 2 non-sports reporters judging by the bylines.  Whenever I read articles on it's website, I'm surprised by how few comments it has - rarely more than 10 even on big or contentious articles.

[Archbishop Herbert Cockthrottle]

I reckon it's just a "Liverpool Echo" article, reposted to the Mail site.  Free content.

Exactamundo.

[Nev]

If I want to read about our club, in particular match reports, the Mail would probably be my last choice.

Prior to the internet and the huge drop in standards it was my first.

[Villa in Denmark]

Lets be honest, the mail is on its arse, sales of the paper have dropped year on year, it cant demand the advertising fees for space in its rag, the small minded people that work for it, obviously "villa haters" want to drag down the most successful sporting team in the region. I'd say boycott it, But that has been done already by the people of Birmingham lol

The túrd that just won't flush.

[Jimbo]

Lets be honest, the mail is on its arse, sales of the paper have dropped year on year, it cant demand the advertising fees for space in its rag, the small minded people that work for it, obviously "villa haters" want to drag down the most successful sporting team in the region. I'd say boycott it, But that has been done already by the people of Birmingham lol

And the more things go this way, the more newspapers like the Evening Mail base their craft on trolling.

[Clampy]

I do wonder how many other newspaper editors would have allowed Bill Howell to post the article that he did.

[Richard E]

I do wonder how many other newspaper editors would have allowed Bill Howell to post the article that he did.

It wouldn't have appeared in the Express and Star, that's for sure.

[Dave Cooper please]

I don't see what benefit it would be to have the local press as just another set of cheerleaders.

Sorry? What?

You see no benefit of our biggest local newspaper being a cheerleader for a club in it's catchment area who have been going through a fuck of a tough time and now have the chance of winning THE FA Cup?

[dave.woodhall]

I reckon it's just a "Liverpool Echo" article, reposted to the Mail site.  Free content.

Exactamundo.

It was from a TalkSport interview.