Missing: Any degree of shame or decency…
From an inaccurate ‘fighting for his life’ to fractured skull lolz. It really hasn’t been a good two days for certain sections of the English tabloid media.
This is not acceptable
The Daily Star somehow manage to scrape further into the bottom of the Ryan Mason barrel. Shame? Decency? Pah. pic.twitter.com/S761X0Dt46
— Football365 (@F365) January 23, 2017
This is also not acceptable
And now The Sun follow suit, of course. Any excuse to raid the Instagram account for bikini shots under the guise of 'news'. Make it stop. pic.twitter.com/e4RunsU2Fr
— Football365 (@F365) January 23, 2017
The moral code
At what point does it end? At what point does an online editor consider a story in bad taste? At which position in the list of a sports website’s list of priorities does decency rank? Because those last two headlines are the absolute pits.
Here are a brief list of things wrong with The Sun story. We’ve tried to stay calm:
1) ‘Just ten weeks’
Why is the time gap between engagement and injury relevant?
2) ‘Romantic Ryan’
God we love alliteration.
3) ‘Exclusive’
When you use an Instagram post from ten weeks ago as the basis for your story, calling it an ‘exclusive’ is a reach.
4) ‘Rachel Peters now faces an emotional time as her romantic fiance recovers from the horror injury’
You literally used this as the caption on a photo of her in a bikini, taken from her Instagram account.
5) ‘Wedding preparations have come to a halt as fiancee Rachel Peters waits on Ryan Mason’s recovery’
You got the story from Instagram. Don’t f**king pretend you have any insight on the couple’s wedding preparations.
6) Ryan Mason is in hospital after suffering a fractured skull. Did nobody stop and think that this was an abhorrent piece of dross to write?
We only said we’d try to stay calm.
And while we’re angry…
The first line in the Daily Star’s piece:
‘A WAG who agreed to wed a football ace…’
Take a look at yourselves.
Important ‘young black footballer spends money’ update
‘Manchester City star Raheem Sterling buys £3.1m family home in leafy Cheshire village complete with wildlife pond, paddock and TRIPLE garage for his car collection’ – top story on MailOnline on Tuesday morning.
Mediawatch would like to join the Mail in offering our congratulations to Sterling on his new home. Sure we’ll find out where John Stones or Harry Kane live next week.
Do as I say, not as I did
‘The time has come for the FA to step up and make their rules relevant to 2017 to stop a Dimitri Payet or Ross McCormack situation happening again.
‘Fifteen or 20 years ago if you wanted to leave a club you had to submit a transfer request and go on the transfer list. Agents and players have realised that by not turning up to training, staying at home, making threats or claiming the player is sick they can still avoid getting hit in the pocket.
‘Clubs are fairly hamstrung when these situations crop up and a player wants to leave. All they have to do is be mardy, throw a strop and they can get a move without losing any bonus that they would lose if they handed in a transfer request.’
Those are the words of Stan Collymore in the Daily Mirror. He’s annoyed about players refusing to play and effectively going on strike while still being paid.
It must be a different Stan Collymore, then, who said this in 2013 when discussing Carlos Tevez’s refusal to play:
“Like Carlos Tevez, I once refused to play in a football match. It will never compare to the incredible scenes in Munich but my flashpoint came at Liverpool in 1996.
“I’d been playing in the first team, had scored a couple of goals, but was then left out and told to play in the reserves. As a point of principle, I said ‘No’.
“My team-mates and the manager were disappointed in me, but this was before squad rotation – and I felt I was making a moral stand… But it’s one thing not to turn up at Birkenhead for the reserves and another completely to refuse to come off the bench in the Champions League.”
It’s okay, though: It was a ‘moral stand’ when it was Stanley.
On the move
On Tuesday morning, the Mirror Football website look for clicks with a very simple story: Who could still move where in January? Despite most people realising that the answer is ‘Nobody is moving anywhere’, the piece was top of their site at 10am. That’s fair enough.
What isn’t fair enough is simply taking an old piece, not bothering to update it and whacking it on the top of the website. Here are just a few of the lines from the feature:
‘They [Crystal Palace] are also considering moves for Oliver Burke, Ben Davies, Jeffrey Schlupp and Patrick van Aanholt.’
They bought one of those players last week, and played him at the weekend.
‘Hull are trying to bring in a number of new faces before the window closes. Estoril’s Evandro, Swansea’s Jefferson Montero and Southampton striker Jay Rodriguez are all targets for new manager Marco Silva.’
They bought one of those players last week, and played him at the weekend.
‘Leicester are also prepared to let Jeffrey Schlupp leave if a club matches his £13million asking price.’
They sold one of those players last week, and he played at the weekend.
Rooney SLAMS Southgate
‘Conspicuous by his absence when Rooney, speaking without notes, went through the managers who have had an impact on his career was England boss Gareth Southgate, who was in the audience’ – Charles Sale, Daily Mail.
Rooney has been managed by Southgate for four matches of a 676-game senior career. ‘Conspicuous by his absence’? Hardly.
Ambitious headline of the day
‘Liverpool transfer news and rumours: Club representatives land in Lisbon to sign William Carvalho’ – Daily Telegraph.
They definitely weren’t sorting out the end of Lazar Markovic’s loan deal. Definitely not.
Recommended reading of the day
Swiss Ramble on Ipswich Town.
David Squires on football under Donald Trump.
Matt Gault on Eddie Howe.