By Paul Nicholson, Editor-in-chief, Insideworldfootball
Disappointing habits are alive and well – actually thriving across all media. Insideworldfootball’s big scoop on Monday set the agenda for the day and a couple of days after – we’re proud of that and stand by every word of the interview as it was printed.
But let’s get this straight from the start. At no point did FIFA’s president ever say that awarding the World Cup to Qatar was a mistake. He did – and in the context of the summer or winter conversation – muse on the wisdom of summer, and in this regard there may have been a mistake. But not on the right of Qatar to hold the World Cup – something he is unequivocally clear about elsewhere in the interview.
It seems for a lot of people in football media, these kinds of nuances are difficult concepts. Perhaps these people should stick to counting goals and getting the scorer’s name right.
But also consider this. Do they really think that if FIFA’s president, the most powerful man in world football, really had said this in the context that they then sensationalised, twisted and reported it, that Insideworldfootball is so stupid – I mean really dumb-ass stupid – not to have put this at the very top of the story.
On the principle that you shouldn’t let the truth get in the way of a good story – well done boys (it is all boys in this world, good old boys from another age in many respects when football was black and white – and actually not that black).
And if there is time after reflecting on how clever you are, and are brave enough, think through whether you really got this right. Or did your own prejudice and bias – your slavish adherence to ‘the line’ – actually really cock this up.
For those readers who might be unaware of ‘the line’, this is where a group of reporters huddle together after an audience with a leading person and work out what they are going to say – after all, they do need to be saying the same thing.
So what is the impact of getting it wrong – reading the wrong ‘line’. One immediate impact was the following day when the head of the European Club Association, Karl Heinz Rummenigge, said that he did not understand why Blatter had said these things about Qatar. It can’t be nice for the people in Qatar, he said, it is a little disrespectful.
Karl Heinz, he didn’t say ‘these things’. Perhaps you should have read the original, check the whisperers in your ear or just stick to the green bit in the middle of the stadium – you were damn good at that in your day.
FIFA’s President has now had to explain the context of the quotes – doubtless in multiple languages. What a pointless exercise in double-speak. And frankly, we all knew what the President meant in the first place. Even the disingenuous crowd who were able to twist the words to another pre-conceived agenda.
Great shame they failed to understand the really good bits of the interview, the bits that did make it different, the bits that ended a lot of the inane debate over Summer or Winter, Qatar or not – a debate that we have very much been part of at Insideworldfootball at times (not afraid to hold our hands up on that one).
Needless to say many of our colleagues got it right, took from what the original body of the text reflected and in many cases added to it with debate and examination of what this meant; the AFP for one. But there are others.
One can perhaps expect a somewhat left-field/hysterical response from the blogosphere or on Twitter where the platform is only themselves and where there is not much real journalism. But everyone is entitled to expect a bit more from real journalists.
It is of course satisfying to break a story and have that re-reported globally – a sort of flattery and recognition that is as good as it gets in this game. But it is seriously annoying to read a piece that quotes your work without at the very least his medium. And really frustrating to read a story that gives it a twist which was never there, never intended, never published but arbitrarily invented to suit a purpose.
There is nothing wrong with reprinting the work of a colleague – we all live off each other in that regard and respect each other for it. And credit accordingly, even if it is sometimes in the form of Clue 3, across, in the crossword.
There is lots wrong with theft, misquotes, self-aggrandisement and plain stupidity.
The devil is in the detail. So is devilishness if the detail is ignored. But there is a fine line between devilishness and maliciousness. Best to stick with the detail.
Just a suggestion.