Trusting the press ....

Like all Saints fans, I have no doubt, I enjoyed Saturday night. It was the first time I'd see Saints on TV for many a year (I was usually there), and watching with a decent bottle of red it was a joy to behold.

So this morning I picked up my Sunday paper (a day late over here, get it) and turned to the Sports pages. The scoreline was confirmed, but what followed was a work of fiction. Now I know watching on the telly you can miss things. But what I don't think that anyone could fabricate was that Saints bossed huge swathes of the game; the closing down was epic; Rickie and Jay caused panic, and our midfielders ran at least 80% of the game. Was this mentioned in my newspaper?

Nope, just an analysis if why City were poor and how Mancini is failing. Of course I'm used to this. Saints have never beaten a top 6 side; they've always beaten themselves according to the papers.

What troubles me is this. For all our grand claims, football is a relatively simple game to follow. Watching the Saints movement exposing City's defenders could surely not have passed by the reporters. So, if reporters can report such a relatively clear cut event in such a biased way, what else do they get wrong? When issues are slightly more complex - the situation in Mali, or the Middle East for example - how can we trust the reports that we read?

Just a thought, and we have two weeks with no game!

 

Spot on.

 

I'm actually happy that people think it was a poor Man City rather than a great Saints. Maybe one or two more teams will underestimate how good we actually are.

 

This isn't really surprising. There's a lot more interest in City, who are after all the defending champions, and many more people will be interested in an article about City's failings than Southampton's successes (and let's be fair, there has been a lot written about us lately).

Yes, we played very well, and fully deserved to win, but City were poor as well, and there is interest for a lot of people in analysing that. The fact of the matter is that had City been at their best they would have beaten us. That's always the way when you play a good team, after all we've put in some great performances against the top sides this season and this is the first one we've actually got three points from.

 

Good points CH20.

I think someone mentioned on another thread about people approaching subjects with a jaundiced view of things. As far as a match report is concerned, on the face of it, you look at two clubs and their relative positions, achievements and expectations, and if you are a sports reporter in the media, you are very unlikely to step out of line. The line being that, if a team from the lower end of the division beats one of the top four, then the top four club must have had an off day. There can be no two ways about it, that must be the case.

That doesn't account for a change in fortunes, personnel, confidence, newly established form at either club, or other variables. Sure, Saints performance might not have accounted for all of Man City's woes but, as someone famous once said, they controlled their own controllables, and their performance was a step up from earlier in the season. Unfortunately, lazy journalists are still basing their opinion on the league table and they still don't get it about this club and its lofty ambitions. At this moment, I can't blame them, in a sense, because a small minority of the supporters still don't get it either, and they know the score. The lazy journalists don't.

 

Alan Green seemed to match this view, I didn't think he could be any more of a prat but he continues to.....

 

we got really good review on motd and motd 2

 

We did, apart from Lawro who was a bit grudging, probably because he predicted we'd lose.

 

It's not really news to anyone, is it? We all know their priority is to sell as many papers as possible. If more people are interested in City than Saints, then they're going to focus on City. People who aren't Saints fans don't really want to read about Saints. And while you mention it:

Mali: bias towards Mali/French govt.
Middle East: bias towards rebels.

Watch the BBC for unbiased opinions. They have different priorities.

 

Fair points. I'm not sure about the lack of bias on BBC. Actually, that's not true; it's the dumbing down on BBC I find appalling, so prefer Channel 4.

The "City-being-the-news" point you and Second Stain make is obviously valid. Of course I expected the paper to cover how the loss had damaged City's title aspirations, and put Mancini's job under threat. But, I watched MOTD and MOTD2 and enjoyed their comments. They were also commenting on City's poor showing but gave Saints some credit. It would have been nice if a "quality" paper could have done the same.

 

Think it was the match report in the independent and besides the score they didn't actually write the word southampton or mention any of our players for about 5 paragraphs all about city/utd. Its tacky, low brow, lazy journalism which is worthless for any sort of meaningful discussion on the game.

 

The BBC is not free from bias (their pro-Israel bias is pretty clear, for example), but it is less bad than most other news agencies.

What that has to do with football though I'm not really sure.

I just think you're all getting carried away. Other small teams have had good results too and they also were overshadowed by analysis of where the big teams went wrong. We aren't special to fans of other teams and we don't warrant the kind of coverage that the champions get.

 

Well, what I mean is that it's not their prerogative to be biased, because they don't make money from it. Any bias they have most likely reflects the government's overall.

What that has to do with football has already been stated. The BBC's priority is to be impartial and it is heavily scrutinized for any bias, so it's in their best interest to represent Saints and City equally, whereas privately owned media outlets actively and consciously benefit from being biased and will profit from giving City most of their attention.

 

I like Green, he's a good commentator. And to be fair, City did massively contribute to their own downfall. And Green did say we were very good as well, as did Graham Taylor.

 

They're biased towards big teams because the football-viewing public is biased towards big teams. It's what people want. We are more interested in United and City than Norwich or Wigan. Other fans are more interested in United and City than they are in Southampton. That's the reality of the situation.

 

These reasons are valid for private media, which I have already said, but not for the BBC. There is great expectation from the public on the BBC to avoid bias, and that is their priority. They represent every team equally on MOTD for this very reason.

 

Completely disagree, they are obligated to cater for public demand, and a cursory viewing of the BBC's coverage confirms what I said.

And they don't represent every team equally on MOTD, they dedicate much more time to the most exciting matches.

 

Right, so they dedicate more time to different teams every week. That's hardly bias.

 

Headline in today's Guardian, above the match report of Saturday's game; "Who is to Blame For City's Decline?" Barely a mention of Saint's in the whole of a one page broadsheet spread.

A lot of sports reporters aren't actually writing about the game at all when they cover the top flight in English football - they're writing about the soap opera that is the premier league. And we're just bit part players in that drama; for the moment anyway.

 

I didn't say it was, you said they represent every team equally which is not true.

The bias is manifested in other ways, like match reports which emphasise the failings of City rather than the successes of Southampton. Just like everyone else. And that's fine, because it's what people want.

Exactly. They're covering what people are interested in. The bigger picture. We've had more than our fair share of coverage in the last couple of years if anything, what with our successive promotions and sacking an apparently successful manager. A small team beating a big team is less remarkable than the champions effectively losing their crown by mid-february.