Mixing It Up With The Media

It appears that I have hurt Darrell King’s feelings.  He took a few swipes at this blog last night on Radio Clyde’s Superscoreboard programme.  We should not be too surprised for I have been less than complimentary about him.  All is fair in love and war after all.  (For the record, I do think that he is the best of a very bad bunch). Having played a part in exposing the incompetence of the Scottish sports media pack, a counter-reaction against us is only natural.  In particular, Darrell will be irked that I keep referring to his claim, made on live radio, that Rangers players held side-letters demonstrating that the “loans” from the EBT never need to be repaid.  This will, if true ;-), prove to be the smoking gun in this case. (Well there “might be” a few more interesting pieces of information that Darrell has not told you about). Why would someone with such easy access to the facts get the interpretation so wildly wrong every time?  It could not be just a cynical ploy, could it?  To be seen publicly defending Rangers’ position, but privately understanding what has really happened?  Perish the thought!

It would suit the likes of Darrell for this blog to become distracted from our mission to roll around in the mud. So, I will reply today and move on.  However, we can expect more of these slaps as the facts of the case are revealed.  We shall let the blog speak for itself in future.

For a journalist, Darrell seems to have a very short memory and must not be taking notes.  Last night, he described as “complete and utter nonsense” the accusation that he sat on the tax story in April 2010 in order to avoid interfering with Rangers’ title run-in.

Perhaps Darrell will recall the following quote: “Untangling Rangers’ finances and breaking them down into layman’s terms for those who matter most – the club’s supporters – is not a straightforward task and much of the information this paper has obtained in the last two days was, understandably, retained until such times as the league championship was won as it was felt it would not serve any good to further muddy the waters when the team was on the cusp of the title”.  27 April 2010, Evening Times- two days after Rangers secured the Scottish Premier League championship.

Darrell might want to tell us who wrote this “complete and utter nonsense“?  Of course, like several articles that Darrell would not want us recalling, the story is no longer available outside the Evening Times’ pay wall. Thankfully, google remembers lots of things.  This text appeared under the heading: “Poison pill that killed the party – Evening Times | Sport | Editor’s Picks”.  Who was the sports editor at this paper at the time?  In another article ON THE SAME DAY, 27 April 2010, Darrell tells us “For the past few months, sources have spoken privately to this paper about the fears of what was coming“.  Two days? A few months? I have no way of knowing which version is the truth.

When a sports journalist is willing to sit on the greatest story in the history of Scottish football for fear of upsetting a team’s momentum to the title, we know exactly where we stand and what to expect.  To his credit, Darrell does not hide behind a fake love of St. Mirren or Airdrie,  His colours are well and truly pinned to the mast.  We can expect him to go down with this ship- defiantly inaccurate in almost his every utterance about the tax case since reviving his interest in the subject a few months ago.  (His stories in April 2010 were actually very good. It was a rare example of decent journalism. The reaction to that work among his base must have stung him).

Rather than running down rabbit holes with those who have been demonstrated to be clueless in the unfolding of Rangers’ tax case, it should be easy to compare the work of this blog- my own and the fantastic work performed by readers- with that of the Scottish media.     There is little similarity between our research & analysis and the lamb-fueled output of any one of the ‘professional’ organisations.

If anyone is in any doubt as to what drives business for Darrell’s papers, I noticed last night that there is a dynamic graphic at the foot of The Herald’s website. It displays intensity of interest in topics by the size of the text.  While hardly a scientific or fool-proof tool, I suspect that it represents the relative interest in Rangers quite well.