MOTD - Media Bias Against City

[london blue 2]

Got a few minutes before I have to head off to the Arena for City's training session

Any chance of a Doug style training report Stuart?

Can't say I'm overly fussed by the paranoia debate..

LB2

[Sister of fu]

Thanks for taking the time Stuart. I remember you did the same when you got the job and you were clear and upfront about your allegiances then.

Some misremembering going on here to suit a position taken that we will never be fairly treated.

agree 100% about the chanting. All of it

and who is "23 post " leo is who's come on here and got a little fight going.
Not one of ours

Couldn't have said it better myself.

This is a place reserved for intelligent debate, plus the posts i make.

Welcome Stuart...pop in here and share some stories and ask some questions. You'll find a few dozen folks here worth stoking some conversations with who may actually help you craft some elements of your day to day gig as you cover the best club in all the land, etc. etc. etc.

cheers

Glory hunter...









Just saying.....:-)

[john68]

Stuart,

I sincerely regret that I am not impressed as some with your answer regarding the Hillsborough chanting and your papers coverage over 4 consecutive days. That Hillsborough chanting and the others have been going on for years. Your paper only picked up on it in response to statements emitting from Anfield and the swamp.

Tonight, I invested in a copy of the MuEN and I would appreciate your comments about my findings.
Balance, 5 pages dedicated to the rags, not quite 2 alloted for City. I am aware that the rags had a game this evening buit 3 of those pages were not about the game, they were about how Taggart and Wio had now become buddies again. There was also a pieceiserted within those rag's pages speculating that Lescott is not expected to wear a T shirt next Saturday. I await to see if this gets the double dose treatment after the weekend with an almost identical report about how didn't wear the T shirt.

[Tokyo Blue]

Got a few minutes before I have to head off to the Arena for City's training session, so will briefly try to answer some points.

Not the ones people want answers to. Again. I have noticed that you do enjoy talking about yourself and not about the subject at hand.

For the Nth time then.

How about the previous 20-odd years of Hillsborough chanting? I don't think it is stretching things to say that such a veteran journalist as yourself should have noticed it and commented upon it. Or were you too busy composing your "very close to being impossible" (pmsl) match reports while the chanting was going on? The rest of the footballing-supporting world has noticed it. Not much of a surprise that you haven't though.

As a general rule, if someone's job is too much for them, they should leave.

[john68]

Stuart,
I have kept this separate because this piece is attributed to your hand and is an almost perfect example of why City fans are so critical of your paper and your work.
May I dare to suggest that you have a partner. A partner like many females who has a nemesis. "THAT WOMAN!"...."I ABSOLUTELY DETEST THAT WOMAN!!!" Almost all women have one. There is little rhyme or reason behind the hatred but hate her she will.
You will know that the very last thing you should/would ever do, on pain of being castrated by cheese grater...is to say "YOU LOOK BEAUTIFUL TONIGHT, MY SWEET.....JUST LIKE......(nemesis). It would be marital suicide and crass stupidity.

Then why this evening did you do that to us? Why was it necessary to tell us that we are now that good we resemble the rags. Anyone with half a brain would know that the last thing any City fan wants City to be is LIKE THE RAGS.
I understand that the "get out" is that it was reporting on comments made by Joleon Lescott. But JL's comments were in answer to a question loaded with the rag tag. He could not fail to answer without insulting the rags. Who asked that loaded question,why was it loaded and then why was it jumped on, and padded out over a number of paragraphs? Why do you find it necessary to measure City's successes through our nemesis club?

It is insulting and infuriating. Aren't City big enough nor good enough to be defined on our own merits and failures? If you wouldn't compare your wife to the beautiful woman down the road. please please don't insult us by doing it to us.

...and adding the reminder of TYPICAL CITY...I think we City fans have moved on from that phase of of our psyche. City are a future, not a past,

[Swales4ever]

when Alex speaks so loud I have learnt to listen, carefully, and behave accordingly.

as I stated, I genuinely consider our new and welcome board member as the sole worth reading and mildly fair contributor from the rags shite stirring machine, which MUen is. hence I waive any further insistence on seeking for factual answers on several "crazy stuff" like blatant conflict of interests, refereeing and disciplinary double standards, role model paintings of the likes of Rooney and Giggs (as opposite to the constant crucifixion of our Mad Mario) and so on. never highlighted on editor's duty and dismissed with some politely mundane bitching even on the hidden ambit of a very selective City Fansforum.

I am all about good manners and social politeness, so I'll keep patiently waiting to read on MEN, how the English Game will benefit by appointment of the MUFC CEO, who earns good money in order to care of MUFC interests, to an office where he will devise the so called "English Financial Fairplay", also being in institutional position to influence the referees.

Likewise, I am confident that one day I might read on MEN an interesting dissertation on:
* why if Mario Balotelli got struck by an elbow in the face, just in front of the referee it ain't foul,
* when if Vincent Kompany sweeps the ball with a timely clean tackle it's a red card with subsequent multiple ban,
* why if Mario Balotelli, accidentally, bumps into the body of a player on the ground, in an attempt to find his balance back, and he does it in front of the referee, later the referee is "convinced" to state that he didn't see, despite being shown by the cameras in line with the action, but if he had seen...
* meanwhile, when Robin Van Persie is shown by the cameras, out of referee's sight, while elbowing an opponent without even pretending to challenge the ball, no retrospective action is needed...
* why anytime that Ashley Young, a worldwide renowned compulsive diver, dives in the box at any opportunity the referee always awards a penalty and no retrospective action is taken later... well, perhaps the FA will soon arrange a t-shirt dressing to fight against the divers cheating the Game.

[Ted Hughes]

Fair play to Stuart Brennan for replying to the various criticisms.

Imo, as I posted earlier, on the whole he's done a good & fair job reporting on City, but not the same same kind of job as he did when reporting on Utd, where he was part of the Pravda machine.

Probably that's a subconscious thing, but imo it's true nontheless. The traditional big 4 types get a better press for their peformances as their fans expect it.

And that's how I think it works in the media; it's not a concious effort to do City down, (well it is with a few people but not the majority) it's a case of pandering to the mentality of certain clubs. If Stuart had reported on Utd coming back from a goal down, with ten men, he would mark them higher. When he was the Utd reporter, he gave them the same kind of marks as the current bloke does, ie; an average Utd performance ranks higher than a top notch City one.

It's the same with the Liverpool & the London media mafia.

They always deny this, and then they do it again.

Brennan is much better than most tbf.


Spencer on the other hand..

If I was part of the "Pravda machine" at United, why was I made persona non gratis at Old Trafford, for my honest reporting of the Glazer takeover and the formation of FC United. I won the Football Supporters Federation's football writer of the year award for that stuff, but seriously pissed off a lot of people at United, including Fergie.
This is what I mean by people only seeing one side of things. Why do you think Utd fans think we are biased towards City? Because they only see the "negative" Utd stuff we do, and ignore the positive stuff.
Some of you lot do the same, but in reverse.

You're just proving the point; as soon as you went against the grain, you were out on your arse, just like every journo who doesn't fall into line with Ferguson & the Utd mafia.

Previous to that, you praised them at every opportunity, marked them higher than you mark Ciy now & even indulged in the occsional wind up on their behalf re City. I remember it well Stuart, I used to think ' how the fuck can this bloke give so & so 'x' out of 10 for that ? 'etc . You were part of their publicity machine, you broke ranks & got stiffed.

That's Utd, & that's why most journos & newspapers kiss their arses; if they don't, they're out.

As I've said, I think you do a good job reporting on City but it's a different job than the one you did for Utd, whether you realise it or not.

[Hazy2]

Stuart, I think it is fair play to you to bother to come on the site. I also happen to think your paper does not show any repect to my club. The examples are far to many to get into. What I would ask is cast your mind back to the dismisal of Mark Hughes. This was reported by the media in such a way, You would have thought our owners had shot him on the pitch live on Sky, The welcome the new manager got would never happen AT THE SWAMP , you are summoned to the swamp, to listen not speak to MING. Mancini was battered throughout his press welcome day by the Save Mark Hughes brigade. Mancini, does have a lot of sore throats, which is two fingers to the media. We treat you and all other media outlets fairly, MUFC treat the media with contempt and agression,threats to set the tone of the reporting you and many others just follow. FACT. I gave up worrying about MUFC years ago, they are bankrupt of anything decent from the manager down to the likes of Giggs who the MUEN must have known about but chose to what ignore STU.

As I say nice to see you on here mate, c'mon we are not stupid.

[Chinners]

Stuart,

I sincerely regret that I am not impressed as some with your answer regarding the Hillsborough chanting and your papers coverage over 4 consecutive days. That Hillsborough chanting and the others have been going on for years. Your paper only picked up on it in response to statements emitting from Anfield and the swamp.

Tonight, I invested in a copy of the MuEN and I would appreciate your comments about my findings.
Balance, 5 pages dedicated to the rags, not quite 2 alloted for City. I am aware that the rags had a game this evening buit 3 of those pages were not about the game, they were about how Taggart and Wio had now become buddies again. There was also a pieceiserted within those rag's pages speculating that Lescott is not expected to wear a T shirt next Saturday. I await to see if this gets the double dose treatment after the weekend with an almost identical report about how didn't wear the T shirt.

In fairness they have done a very interesting feature on the hairdryer installed in Mancini's bit of the dressing room. FFS, even the Sun wouldn't have the nerve to print such bollox (granted I've reprinted it today but thats because it is bollox)

MuEN ....for shame

Anyway, back on topic .... I'm looking forward to MOTD this weekend

[Rag_hater]

Anyway, back on topic .... I'm looking forward to MOTD this weekend

Hansen groupie.

[Blue Since 76]

As far as I'm aware, none of my taxes go to support the Evening News. It's therefore a commercial venture that does what it sees fit to try and make a profit. If I like it, I buy it. If I don't, I don't. I haven't bought it since I worked in town and they gave it away.

MOTD on the other hand is different. I pay for that. It's also all the football I get to see unless I pay someone else on top if what I pay for MOTD. I therefore expect that to be honest and un-biased.

But as I said, if you don't like the way the Evening News treats City, just don't buy it or read it. The beauty of the internet means that these days there are lots of others places to get match reports.

[Chinners]

Anyway, back on topic .... I'm looking forward to MOTD this weekend

Hansen groupie.

You Sir are a moron .......... it's Lawro

[Rag_hater]

Anyway, back on topic .... I'm looking forward to MOTD this weekend

Hansen groupie.

You Sir are a moron .......... it's Lawro

Tell me something we don't all know.

[Chinners]

Anyway, back on topic .... I'm looking forward to MOTD this weekend

Hansen groupie.

You Sir are a moron .......... it's Lawro

Tell me something we don't all know.

Heh heh, well you didn't as you thought it was Hansen! .... or did you mean the moron bit ;)

[stuart brennan]

I get the feeling we are going round in circles here, and that some people are so entrenched in their erroneous beliefs about the MEN that nothing will shift them. That's fair enough, everyone is entitled to opinions, and I know the MEN doesn't get it right all the time - but when it gets it wrong, it is nothing to do with agendas or conspiracies, just human error or misjudgment.
I keep being told I haven't answered this question or that, which I think I have - but no-one has really addressed my key questions:
1. Why would the MEN have an anti-City agenda? It's akin to Marks and Spencer having an anti-male customers agenda, or to McDonalds having an anti-fat person agenda.
2. Why does the City press office, or indeed anyone in authority at City, not feel we have an anti-City bias?

I'm not going back over the Hillsborough chanting, other than to say I have personally not heard Utd fans chanting about Hillsborough. I know they have, as I know people who have heard it. The last bout of articles about Munich chanting came when it was topical, because of the TV docu-drama. The articles about Hillsborough chanting came when it was topical, due to the inquiry.

As for Lescott saying City have stolen Utd's thunder by scoring late goals, that was in answer to a question posed by a southern-based journalist who is neither a Utd or City fan. I thought it was an interesting answer, and I'm not really bothered if some people are so entrenched in their hatred of all things United that they can't see it as a compliment. There are many things to hate about United, and I probably share a lot of them with you, but to deny that there is nothing to at least respect is just childish.

Mancio - I have addressed many of the things you talked about. I strongly condemned Kompany's red card and defended Mario for his red at Anfield. Here's my Tweet on Kompany at the time: https://twitter.com/StuBrennanMEN/statu ... 8082531328

As for the person who remembers well that I marked United up, I very, very rarely did the ratings for United, apart from once or twice a season, so I applaud your memory. For the past 17 years they have usually been done by Stuart Mathieson.

Oh, and Tokyo Blue, when did I say I found the job too much for me? I love the job, and the difficulty on match nights is a great challenge. I was just making the point that it is difficult, and that anyone would find it difficult. If you don't believe me, give it a go.

[Chinners]

I ain't that difficult really ... here are my scores for tonight

Hart 9
Clichy 8
Lescott 7
Kompany 7
Richards 9
Nasri 8
Milner 9
Barry 10
Toure Y 9
Augero 9
Dzeko 3

See ... piece of piss

[Duckman]

I get the feeling we are going round in circles here, and that some people are so entrenched in their erroneous beliefs about the MEN that nothing will shift them. That's fair enough, everyone is entitled to opinions, and I know the MEN doesn't get it right all the time - but when it gets it wrong, it is nothing to do with agendas or conspiracies, just human error or misjudgment.
I keep being told I haven't answered this question or that, which I think I have - but no-one has really addressed my key questions:
1. Why would the MEN have an anti-City agenda? It's akin to Marks and Spencer having an anti-male customers agenda, or to McDonalds having an anti-fat person agenda.
2. Why does the City press office, or indeed anyone in authority at City, not feel we have an anti-City bias?

I'm not going back over the Hillsborough chanting, other than to say I have personally not heard Utd fans chanting about Hillsborough. I know they have, as I know people who have heard it. The last bout of articles about Munich chanting came when it was topical, because of the TV docu-drama. The articles about Hillsborough chanting came when it was topical, due to the inquiry.

As for Lescott saying City have stolen Utd's thunder by scoring late goals, that was in answer to a question posed by a southern-based journalist who is neither a Utd or City fan. I thought it was an interesting answer, and I'm not really bothered if some people are so entrenched in their hatred of all things United that they can't see it as a compliment. There are many things to hate about United, and I probably share a lot of them with you, but to deny that there is nothing to at least respect is just childish.

Mancio - I have addressed many of the things you talked about. I strongly condemned Kompany's red card and defended Mario for his red at Anfield. Here's my Tweet on Kompany at the time: https://twitter.com/StuBrennanMEN/statu ... 8082531328

As for the person who remembers well that I marked United up, I very, very rarely did the ratings for United, apart from once or twice a season, so I applaud your memory. For the past 17 years they have usually been done by Stuart Mathieson.

Oh, and Tokyo Blue, when did I say I found the job too much for me? I love the job, and the difficulty on match nights is a great challenge. I was just making the point that it is difficult, and that anyone would find it difficult. If you don't believe me, give it a go.

for your information, McDonalds does have an agenda, an anti-thin person agenda.

[Ted Hughes]

I get the feeling we are going round in circles here, and that some people are so entrenched in their erroneous beliefs about the MEN that nothing will shift them. That's fair enough, everyone is entitled to opinions, and I know the MEN doesn't get it right all the time - but when it gets it wrong, it is nothing to do with agendas or conspiracies, just human error or misjudgment.
I keep being told I haven't answered this question or that, which I think I have - but no-one has really addressed my key questions:
1. Why would the MEN have an anti-City agenda? It's akin to Marks and Spencer having an anti-male customers agenda, or to McDonalds having an anti-fat person agenda.
2. Why does the City press office, or indeed anyone in authority at City, not feel we have an anti-City bias?

I'm not going back over the Hillsborough chanting, other than to say I have personally not heard Utd fans chanting about Hillsborough. I know they have, as I know people who have heard it. The last bout of articles about Munich chanting came when it was topical, because of the TV docu-drama. The articles about Hillsborough chanting came when it was topical, due to the inquiry.

As for Lescott saying City have stolen Utd's thunder by scoring late goals, that was in answer to a question posed by a southern-based journalist who is neither a Utd or City fan. I thought it was an interesting answer, and I'm not really bothered if some people are so entrenched in their hatred of all things United that they can't see it as a compliment. There are many things to hate about United, and I probably share a lot of them with you, but to deny that there is nothing to at least respect is just childish.

Mancio - I have addressed many of the things you talked about. I strongly condemned Kompany's red card and defended Mario for his red at Anfield. Here's my Tweet on Kompany at the time: https://twitter.com/StuBrennanMEN/statu ... 8082531328

As for the person who remembers well that I marked United up, I very, very rarely did the ratings for United, apart from once or twice a season, so I applaud your memory. For the past 17 years they have usually been done by Stuart Mathieson.

Oh, and Tokyo Blue, when did I say I found the job too much for me? I love the job, and the difficulty on match nights is a great challenge. I was just making the point that it is difficult, and that anyone would find it difficult. If you don't believe me, give it a go.

Fair enough, if he was also doing the ratings back then it explains why they were & still are, largely ridiculous & you are exemept from such blame & I apologise. Does he do ours now too btw ? (joke)

I personally don't think the media has a conscious agenda against City, it's just that there are a lot of people who support the established 'big 4' etc & another group who feel more comfortable with Utd/Liverpool etc being in their 'rightful place' rather than us & it comes out in the way they report things.

When you are a City fan you notice the little things, such as how your editor Mr Spencer would appear on Talksport for instance, keen to downplay talk of rifts at OT, mention what a great man Sir Alex is & how soon he will have everything firing on all cylinders, then when asked about City; 'there's no smoke without fire' etc.

You probably can't see this & he would deny it, but it was happening every time until right at the end of last season, when he suddenly became our biggest fan one day & gushingly praised us. Funnily enough, this came just after lots of City fans had been discussing a boycott of your paper.

I have no problem with the majority of your work though & you have done some very good & very fair stuff on City.

Keep it up & respect to you for coming on here.

[london blue 2]

Cheers Stuart, Now i'm craving Macdonalds.

[stuart brennan]

Peter Spencer is big enough to defend himself, but we had the Talksport thing in a similar debate on BM - I challenged the people who said that to go to the Talksport website, where you can find an archive of recordings (do a search on peter spencer) and then flag up the offending ones.
They didn't come up with anything substantial, perhaps because when they listened to it again, with a more critical ear, they found nothing untoward.
One person claimed that he had referred to United as "we" when, in fact, he had referred to the MEN as "we".
This is exactly what I am talking about. People with pre-conceived ideas hear things differently, and they hear them to suit their opinions, and the same goes for stuff in print.
I have been accused of writing "sly digs" about City in my reports. I would have to be and idiot to do that in my position. I'm no Stephen Hawking, but I'm also not entirely stupid. The "sly digs" are because people approach something with prejudice, nothing to do with anything I have written.

Chinners - thanks for the marks, I might just nick them to save myself a bit of time.
Enjoy the game, and here's hoping for a win.