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Do these people have direct lines to the hierarchy at City or do they mainly use the internet to gather information?

aaron bond made this point in the Aguero Official thread and I think it's a very good question.

As the Ageuro deal was coming to an end, it was amusing to see SkySports have a reporter live at the Etihad Stadium reporting on what was being said on Twitter and the club's OS!

The hacks in the written press were no better informed either, with many of them making wild guesses at what was going on and reporting rumours as facts!

One of the best example of this was when the club's official Twitter feed reported 'Aguero Signs' and the MEN and SkySports both got all premature and excitedly reported that it was a done deal. If only they had looked at the tweet properly they would have seen a picture underneath of Aguero signing a fans shirt!

It seems to me that our club only announce information as and when it suits them (and good on them for that) and the vast majority of reports from elsewhere are lies/rumours/conjecture/guess-work.

Maybe it's time to start treating reports in the media with the same suspicion that we show towards ITK threads on here and other forums.

The question is, are you speculating or a genuine ITK?

Cause you know how we treat ITK's on here.

Things changed when Bobby came in, no one in the country would have been connected with him or his coaches.

I think the press do trawl the forums and by sheer volume of rumours, occasionally get one nearly right early on.

Daniel Taylor made a decent point about a year ago when he said that, yes, journalists have certain reliable sources within clubs which they cannot name. The problem, however, is that he spoke in general terms about people in an industry with wildly different standards. For every John Pilger there are hundreds of tabloid hacks, many now known to be corrupt. If a football writer has earned your trust with a number of intelligent and well researched pieces, then his articles might be considered plausible. Otherwise...

Players are one source, but players don't know that much & are prone to telling porkies & twisting stuff to suit themselves. Some journos are pally with the managers & get dropped titbits provided they do favours in return. Most just make shit up & hope one of their guesses comes true.

Do the hacks have a source? Well, they have been known to get information by, ahem, alternative means.

I know for a fact that Neil Ashton was being fed info from City at the start of the season.

When the papers refer to a source close to ...' etc very often it is an agent peddling some such stuff. In some way they are quite like spin doctors, specialising behind the scenes in 'media management'. You want your player to move on; or get an improved contract - you get word out via a trusted journo that the player is 'unsettled'. You want your player to go to a new club - you start some media speculation, with the player responding 'he is honoured to be linked with club xx but ......

That's one reason why so much stuff is so wide of the mark - the journo's sources have their own manipulative agenda and the journo's go along with it as very often they are quite lazy and put out whatever is spoon fed to them.

Fucking Platt.. A cunt never changes its spots!!