The downfall of the house of Leggo

Rhatt McGlone

 

Phil MacWhatThaFuck is like Diet Leggo though - he's not as bad, but I respect him as far as I could kick him.

 

I don't think he is like Leggo at all. Phil can verify the facts of what he writes. His opinions stand up less well whereas Leggo makes **** up.

I don't like or trust Phil but I know he is fastidious and accurate on matters of fact.

I don't like his opinions on certain things and I don't respect that he has not been consistent with those opinions.

I agree totally.

 

He used to have the catchphrase on his blog 'Dissident Journalist' - which has some very obvious political undertones and some less obvious - one of the less obvious being that as a middle aged man he seen himself as some sort of journalistic rebel. I'm not quite sure how one can actually be a journalistic rebel, surely the measure of a good journalist is one who reports facts as facts, a journalist of record - if you believe that the average journalist is diverging from truth then out them as lapdogs, but in the purest sense of the term if you believe yourself to be a right and just journalist then what sort of dissidence is needed? Anyway it appears to me to be a self indulgent delusion of grandeur, trying to promote his very mediocre career as being part of some greater effort against an enemy which doesn't really exist.

Also someone who un-Anglicises their name is trying far too hard.

Slainte,
Michéal Ó Riada

 

I don't disagree with your opinion of him at all. I am not so sure I agree on what makes a good journalist. Everything has a slant and facts are skewed to support that slant (in the presentation of any position). The thing about it is that the facts you chose to present have to stand up to scrutiny. I know Phil does that, it appears Leggo relies on rhetoric and repetition.

I had given the benefit of the doubt wrt the "dissident" and "rebel" stuff as there was the possibility that he used that term in the context of the topics he was prepared to write about and whatever else about it, he was factually accurate. I was probably wrong to give him the doubt as just how much of an ego trip this was for him.

Dev has cited it a couple of times but Leggo spoke of Joe O'Rourke wanting all protestants dead. That was a complete fabrication based on the misrepresentation of a joke. As far as I am aware, Phil has never descended to that.

I don't want to appear as an apologist for him as I have written an article that was very critical of a particular opinion piece of his. But from a factual standpoint, it would be churlish of me to say that he hasn't been right on a lot of things. He can only be right if he checks his sources and I know that he does that.

I do understand why people want to portray them as ying and yang but I just don't see it that way myself. It is easy to discredit Leggo facts. Not so easy to discredit Phil facts. Easy to disagree with both their opinions.

 

I did say Diet Leggo.

Just from memory his crusade against Hugh Dallas over the Pope joke was another reason I gathered he was an idiot. As much as I had a million reasons to hate Hugh Dallas and I would have happily jumped on any excuse to get rid of him, I felt the mock offence spouted by Phil was just irritating (especially since he professes to represent me as a Celtic fan). He's proud of getting rid of Dallas as well over that joke, he has it on one of the most prominent places on his blog's homepage.

He may not spout the obvious bile that comes from Leggo's mouth, but he is almost equally as predictable in his one-sidedness.

 

Fair dues.

You may be right about that, especially after some of the things Phil has said about the same or similar topics.

That said, I believe he was right to go with the story and right to push it as forcefully as he did. The ego driven triumphalism off the back of it that you are referring to certainly doesn't leave a good taste in the mouth. I look for a reason as to why he might behave in that way. At the time I thought that maybe these things act as testamonials for freelance journos. Perhaps it would stand to him taking other works forward......but then I came to the conclusion that it is all ego.

You could take a guess at what kind of spin a lot of journalists would put on a story though. I do understand what you mean but it appears (to me at least) that the perpetuation of Leggo blogs are fuelled by personal vendettas. The Rangers/Sevco story just keeps on delivering by itself and that is where Phil has positioned himself.

I am not sure where that point was, but it was definitely there where Phils status changed on this topic from journalist to commentator. The journalistic stuff I was grand with. I thought he did it well. The commentator stuff that led to his self trumpeting I can't buy.

 

The Scotch Sun is serialising Phils blogs.

This fills me with consternation.