I don't usually mind the HDM (I hear the sound of disembowling cutlasses being sharpened), but the stories they have come out with these past few weeks....my word, the only way to describe them is 'obvious'. There's no investigative journalism, it's like they puff their cheeks out, pick up the phone and call HCAFC, asking if anybody fancies a chat. Today's 'story' was Rosenior talking about the fans needing to cheer. Right, well that's pretty obvious (although I do like reading Rosenior, wish he'd do a column), then we've had: Barmby has faith in Fryatt (well yes, he hasn't bought anybody so that's pretty clear) Hobbs is perfect leader (He's been captain all season, to suggest otherwise would mean Barmby isn't doing it properly) 'I'd never boo by team' says Barmby (Well everybody always says that, also, spot the spelling error that went uncorrected. Hardly likely to be a direct quote) Fixtures backlog threatens promotion push (odd choice of words, I'd have said it would test their promotion credentials. Losing key players or being docked points would be more of a threat, I'd say. That's like saying a paper cut is a threat of AIDS. True, but there are worse ways of getting it.) Rosenior urges fans not to lose sight of positives (basically a 'chin up everybody') Just want to read something that we haven't discussed on here 3 months ago.
That's probably because there's no real need to do any investigative journalism. There's no dirt to dig out within the squad and even if there was publicising it would do no good. We're in a healthy position at the minute so the headlines we're seeing are expected (keep postive and get behind us)
Some tub thumping would not go amiss. Afterall we are entering the business end of the season now. Back the Lads and all that jazz. Better than whats served up at the moment. imo.
I don't agree at all, the paper only prints what it gets from the club. Down here the local rag is exactly the same. It repeats the same elements of the story about three times. Investigative journalism is not what local press is for, it is a conduit for local stories and should be reactive not proactive in it's make up. The fact is that there is nothing to report, but columns still need to be filled. Southamptons defeat last night gets. 4 pages, but nearly all of it is photos.
The HDM have been like that for the last 20+ odd years. I do remember some time in the very dim past when it was a newspaper. No competition that's one of the problems. Everyone should stop buying it, then a real paper will in time emerge.
does anyone buy it? I used to work there and its readership was 300k per issue. I bet its a fraction of that now. Too many mobiles, tablets and other sources of focused interest specific electronic publications in the market place. Northcliffe clearly dont have enough advertisers and hatches, matches and scratches to justify 6 days of print and the hacks only get editorial space in relation to this. The Hull Daly Mail will soon be printed two or three editions per week.
I think I know what you are getting at, it would not take too much effort to turn these stories into something a bit more interesting. They could interview the player and ask him how he and his family are enjoying being in the area etc, that would at least make it a more interesting read.
Not being funny, but what do you want them to report? If there's no big news coming out any of the 3 clubs they have to fill the gaps with half stories. The HDM and Humberside get a rough ride, but without them there would be no news from the club at all.
wrong. many many contemporary ways of getting the message out if required. wow i ve posted on a news medium!!!!!!
The hdm and radio humberside don't give a **** about city they employ nick woods leeds fan .phil buckingham sunderland fan.Even radio humberside employ too reporters that when asked on air if they had not been paid to report on city would they come to a game.Both said no.Now switch the two for the rugby side of things all fans of the club they report on and it comes across that way.You listen to a fc or rovers game and you can hear for yourself.
i dont get why theres criticism for no earth shattering stories in a quiet fortnight of football in the City. We would be up in arms if there was a whiff the paper was digging around looking for gossip right when the clubs at the business end of the league. You ask for investigative journalism not a different approach to safe and quite obvious stories , Im not sure id care if we found out one of our players likes wearing PVC underware in a local lay-by or anything.
If there's no news to report on and they want to fill column inches with stuff on City they should be doing some sort of reflective articles. They could have one a week looking back on key seasons/times in the club's history. Off the top of my head in the last 10 years there's 3 promotions, a relegation, the adapting to life after Taylor left, the first PL season, adapting to life after Brown left and the relegation from the PL. With Barmby becoming the first person from Hull to be our manager they could have a piece on his life/career and how different parts of it prepared him for and led him to the role (I don't know, they might have done something like this already that I've not seen). It's stuff most of us already know, but go further back to the season we missed out on promotion to the top flight on the last day at Burnley with Sheff U fans there because they'd already played their game and most of us younger ones won't know much about it. It's not like it would involve much work for them either, they must have end of season reviews in their archives that they can pull up and just update, stick a "Where are they now?/Where did they go after City?" box on the promotion teams and republish. With the three clubs they could do one a day during the week. It might be difficult to make a series out of the one for FC since they're quite time limited, but I'm sure there's been a few things happened to them since they were formed after the merger of Gateshead and the old club that bore the name.
I'd never suggest plagiarism, not that I'd need to, if I'd not seen him for myself I'd have been convinced that John Fieldhouse was just the name used for them using messageboards as ghost writers. It'd at least explain why all the news was a couple of days old and why the match reports in Sportsmail a couple of hours later bore no resemblance to the match people had been to see. (had to write that for themselves because of the print deadline)
