Has it ever occurred to anybody how much freedom the press actually have?
Obviously all the press have this freedom but I am thinking particularly of the absolute rubbish, supposition, guesses and downright lies put forward by the football writers in order to bring attention to their particular publication, either for clicks online or to sell their newspaper, without any governing body to moderate their behaviour.
Quite often, the headline used will bear no resemblance to the content of the story.
At the time of writing this a deal for Manchester United to sign Pedro has been “imminent” for nearly two weeks. There have been “done deals” for Otamendi, Gaitan, Ramos and Cillesen. The plain fact of the matter is, again at the time of writing, none of these players have been signed.
Manchester City will sign De Bruyne and anybody else the press care to throw into the mix, because they really don’t have any moral values, respect for the truth or regard for their readers.
The only really surprising thing is that they have any readers left as they absolutely refuse to believe in the existence of any intelligent life form amongst the masses.
Do they really think we believe what they write? Are they THAT megalomaniacal that they think they can feed us any old rubbish and we will just swallow it because they are soooo clever?
I watch The Sunday Supplement. For those of you who are unaware, it is a self congratulatory programme on Sky, hosted by the press, for the press. It is aired under the pretext of being a discussion show, whereby football writers from various newspapers get to be self important and, occasionally, supercilious. They discuss any “important” football matches that have taken place since the last time they convened and football in general. Although I am sure they put forward their honest opinion, it is certainly no different an opinion as you would elicit from four blokes in a pub on a Sunday lunch. Yet these people are put forward as experts on the sport. To my knowledge, none of the writers I have seen on this programme have ever played professional football, unlike Cricket Writers On TV, whereby most are ex professional cricketers.
Maybe this is the way Sky want it to be. As I have already said, Sky Sports broadcasts the “soap operas” of football preview programmes.
If these “writers” were capable of logical thought they would realise that there are literally thousands of people capable of doing what they do. They would become insecure in their job and this insecurity would enhance and improve their writing and they would be less comfortable. Their writing would improve because they would fear for their jobs. They may stop lying. They may even become better human beings. I may become king of England one day.
It is pity that it will take me becoming king of England to right all that is wrong with the press.
I have nothing personal whatsoever against the writers who actually appear on the Sunday Supplement. I just wish they would remember that they are representing, in my opinion, the fans NOT the clubs or themselves.
In conclusion, I have read many comments from football fans on internet sites and the general message seems to be that the press needs to get it’s act together as, at the moment, it is seen as nothing more than a bunch of fairytale writers trying to outdo one another and see who can create the most believed lie.
WHY SAY ANYTHING? 
Good blog! Found your link in one of the daily newspaper comment sections and happy to have found you. Good title also!
The subject matter of this piece is close to my heart. I live in New Zealand and follow most of the UK daily newspapers online plus many other sites such as Football365. Over the years I have been rating my bookmarks on Chrome in the order I like to read which is the same order as I perceive their reliability! At the bottom I have the Star and Metro, which in my honestly held opinion are so full of lies and half truths to be worth only a laugh.
Sadly from this distance such rubbish appears mainly to relate to football and not other sports and to focus on three or four clubs, and for each club there are at least as many haters and fans so they will always please some people some of the time!
Even when a rumour is denied or clarified by someone in authority in a club many of these publications ignore such information or only modify slightly the lies they are printing!
It can only be click bait surely??
Is there a public body in the UK which is responsible for press accuracy? We have one here and although its fairly toothless at least it does give a means to get rid of some frustration!
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Thanks for your comments, much appreciated.
Yes, there is a press body in the UK, called the Press Complaints Commission. Their purpose appears to be to look into complaints, rather than regulate or moderate the amount of lies told by the press. If they only act on complaints received I would have to complain five times per day for a year for anything to actually get done. So the press will have a free rein for a while longer until somebody with a little power gets bored enough to act.
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