Arsenal News » How to be a lying toad: the ten rules of football journalism

Today, 22 January 2010, is the 100th anniversary to the day of the meetings that marked the end of the old Arsenal, and the birth of the club we know and love today.

Newspapers played a major part in giving us an understanding of that story, not least because Henry Norris himself wrote a lot of football articles for the press – and there’s more about this on www.blog.woolwicharsenal.co.uk

I won’t repeat that story, but here on this site I think it is appropriate, 100 years later, that we take a moment to look at the state of the footballing media today.

The rules of football journalism are certainly followed by the overwhelming majority of hacks today.  There are a handful who are more sincere, more honest, and more able to see what is going on, but they are in a tiny minority.

Thus, if you want to be a football journalist and keep your job, this is what you do…

1.  Agree on the key issues with all other journalists

In the press box at the Ems it was quickly agreed – Gallas was the story on wednesday.  The word went up and down, and there it is – and so it hits every paper.

This agreement is reached not just on incidents (remember everyone crowing with “Eduardo is a cheat, and we must wipe it out of the game”), but also on club situations.   Arsenal were never talked of as contenders for anything for most of the season – not because we weren’t but because we were told we weren’t.  Two men who make their money out of pornography, and are just about the biggest pornographers in the country, take over West Ham, but it is agreed: we don’t mention that, only the fact that they are “fans”.  Cesc will go to Barca: that is a “story”, so it is repeated, even though it is untrue.

Or to give another example: agree that “Arsenal have not won anything for four years” is a story but agree also that “Liverpool has not won the league for 20 years” is not a story.

2.  Keep it simple because the readers are stupid

Simplicity is the key even though football is complex.  Wenger’s long term plans in taking apart the Invincibles and replacing them through a policy of few big money signings, but a lot of world wide scouting, is just too complex to ordinary people to get.  So instead focus on the simple ideas: Wenger won’t buy because he is mean, or the club is bust.

Likewise criticise Arsenal because none of the youngsters break through to the first team – and ignore the fact that most of the reserves have been together for years, and are English.  That’s the point – we work on long term projects, but the journalists are interested only in “now.”

3. Players first, clubs second, economics third, organisations fourth, rules fifth

Whenever possible talk about players, but don’t criticise their private lives – even though that is exactly what you would do as a celebrity journalist.  So when Crouch makes a set of wild and hate-filled statements in his autobiography, we turn the other cheek, and talk up his England prospects.

After this you can talk about clubs, but keep it simple.  Beyond that it is all getting a bit too heavy for the average reader.   If you go into economics (the third level of writing), then it really has to be “They owe money to X” or “Wenger has a sixty million pound war chest”.

Which is why we get so little written about organisations such as FIFA, and UEFA, the rules of football, or corruption and potential corruption.  We might note that a lot of people are coming up with court cases of late, or that FIFA have repeatedly been found guilty of corruption in court, but let’s not get too heavy about it.  This is sport.

4. Be anti-foreigners

This is vital.  Clubs playing in England should have English, or British players in.  In following this rule it is essential that you forget that Ramsey, for example, would not qualify for England if we brought in a national identity programme in football.  Likewise you must not mention that people’s nationalities in football are determined as much by their grandmother’s passing association with some territory or other, as with a player’s accidental place of birth.

Never, ever, go into the question of whether journalists should be faced with the same national identity questions before they are allowed to write for papers.

5. Make it up and tell the fans what to think

Following on from point four, suggest that clubs with an “English spine” always do better – but don’t ever produce any stats to prove the point.  Also take up other themes.  Remember how we used to be told that Highbury was the smallest pitch in the EPL.  It was rubbish, as a quick reference to any of the major books on football would reveal – but say it enough and it becomes a truth.   Oh and don’t forget, Arsenal have “no strength in depth”.

6. Never admit you got it wrong

Since most of what you write will be made up, you will be wrong most of the time.   But never admit it.   When it is utterly obvious to even the most semi-literate reader of your rag that what you said two months ago was utterly wrong, rewrite the story as, “While some commentators on the game have been writing off Arsenal, they have quietly gone about working their way up the league…”   Translated this means, “I wrote six weeks ago that Arsenal were a pathetic leaderless shambles and that they are now settling into a period of mid-table mediocrity unless they get rid of Wenger.”

7. Always work in black and white

Everything is good or bad.  A player is a genius, or useless.   Forget reality.

8.  Use the lingo

Here are the key words you must put into every single article.

• swoop
• set to
• snap up
• highly rated
• out of favour
• u-turn

Thus the perfect sentence is, “Arsenal are set to swoop for Ajax’s highly rated forward Grosny Grosnik, who will be snapped up to replace out of favour Eduardo, as Wenger completes a dramatic u-turn in his transfer dealings.”

9.  Re-run old rumours

If in doubt, go back two months and run the same page again as you did before.  As in, “Arshavin is so distressed at the tax rates in the UK he has asked for a transfer to Spain,” and “Cesc admits, I would love to play for Barca.”   The point about this is that by running a story twice it makes it seem more true – at least according to the journos.

10. Take stories from foreign language interviews.

These are the one’s to quote if you really want your story to sound good.  Remember Bendtner’s supposed statement that he was the best player at Arsenal and should be playing in every game.  Sadly a few Arsenal fans who don’t understand the media, actually believed it.  The reality was that he was speaking in Danish, and never said anything of the sort.   The apology when it was printed was about 5% of the size of the original story and apologised for “any misunderstanding” that might have arisen.

Journalists can be nice people, and can be funny people too.   Think of Jacko Jones for example.  You can read his story, and his daily battle with his editor in Making the Arsenal (where else?)  But much of the time they are rather nasty individuals who make things up.

Of course if you are a regular reader you will know I make stuff up too – but at least I think it is fairly clear that I did not tell you that Nogbad the Bad founded the Republic of Bolton on the grounds that I expected you to believe it.

If you really want to understand what is going on, consider this point.  Earlier this season I had a total brainstorm and instead of writing the name of one of our players, I wrote the name of a guy I was at school with several million years ago.  When lots of people asked who I was talking about, I admitted the error, and noted what a dolt I am.

About two years ago the Times ran a piece on its web site in which it listed the 50 hottest 16 and 17 year old prospects in the world at present.   One of these was a guy linked with Arsenal.   Unfortunately the player did not exist and the Times found their journalist had simply cut and pasted an article from a Hungarian (?) web site.   Did they apologise, or agree they had been foolish?   Nope – they simply removed that line from the web site.

That’s how it goes.  It is as if the great novel “1984″ has been taken as a blueprint for journalism, rather than a dire warning.

(c) Tony Attwood 2010.