Sunday, September 24, 2006

I Had That Alan Curbishley In The Back Of My Cab Once...

You know all those newspaper articles which sneer at blogs like this one for peddling unsubstantiated rumours, as if journalists wouldn't think of indulging in such practices? Next time anyone writes this, quote example back at them.

The sports pages of most national newspapers wouldn't exist without unsubstantiated rumours being printed. They're the lifeblood of so-called sports journalism. The broadsheets keep their consciences clean by reporting what the tabloids are saying - see The Observer's Tales from the Tabs column, which looks at possible football transfer rumours. But the Independent on Sunday has surpassed itself today. It reports...

Alan Curbishley will replace Martin Jol as Tottenham's manager next month

And who is the source for this exclusive nugget? A White Hart Lane insider? A friend of Alan Curbishley? No, the source is an unnamed North London Taxi Driver. You couldn't make it up.

6 comments:

The Hitch said...

I Had That Alan Curbishley In The Back Of My Cab Once...
Really , does he still keep in touch?

Scary Biscuits said...

Right on, Iain. If dead tree journalists weren't all so sloppy about there facts there probably wouldn't be any need for blogs.

None of them keep to the Press Complaints Commission's guidlines that opinions should be clearly seperated from facts.

Anonymous said...

Well there's had and then there's had, if you know what I mean.

Anonymous said...

One similarity between tabloid newspapers and the Labour party is that they'll only bother telling the truth if it suits their purposes.

Then again, if tabloids and the Labour party always told the truth we'd all have a lot more spare time on our hands.

Anonymous said...

Since I have been commuting further I have the time for several papers , not to say this most informative-entertaining -and -amusing Blog.I had never realised before the extent to which the Telegraph regurgitates material from, other papers ,old stories , public announcements of various sorts ,as `news`. Are other Broad sheets as disinterested in actual news gathering ?

..and what is a fisk

Croydonian said...

Newmania,

This is fisking.