The Scottish football media - a special shower

That fans of a Celtic persuasion tend to distrust the Scottish football media is nothing new. Those of us old enough to remember Don Morrison and Alex “Candid” Cameron needed little convincing that being anti-Celtic was rarely, if ever, to the detriment of any aspiring young journalist's career.

But, even in those days, the Scottish sports press had the odd reliable maverick, such as Ian Archer, the cautiously respected like Alan Davidson and the rare pearl that was Hugh McIlvanney whose retirement in March of this year surely pulled down the curtain on Scotland's last great sportswriter.

It now seems ironic, if not fanciful, to note that one of the would-be heirs to McIlvanney's mantle was one James Traynor, formerly of the Glasgow Herald parish. There is a whole generation of football fans too young to remember those heady days and most are reluctant to believe they existed.

Traynor, like no other, embodies the collapse of professional and ethical journalistic standards and the derision heaped on those who followed him into the profession.

I sometimes wonder what prompted Traynor to propel himself from understated respectability to the sort of man who would represent the worst form of dishonest tabloid journalism to the darkest tactics in PR – sometimes blurring the two roles.

Once, Scottish football fans simply laughed at Darryl Broadfoot and his “Greek Saga” prose. But few are laughing now – from within the ranks of the media or their consumers at any club.

However, since the events preceding – and subsequent to – the liquidation of Rangers, there has been the sort of psychotic meltdown that one might only expect when facing Armageddon.

With shock troops rallied by Traynor and Jack Irvine before him, a climate of fear has arisen concerning any mention of Rangers.

Chris McLaughlin was banned from Ibrox, with scarcely a whimper raised publicly by his peers. Graham Spiers was forced to leave his freelance gig at the Herald, after a gutless performance by Magnus Llewellyn, who is now to be his new editor at The Times.

And only recently Tom English and Stuart Cosgrove were named in an “enemies-of-Rangers” style press release that some viewed as an incitement to disorder. Again, the defence of both men was muted, to say the least.

But if some would say this calls into question the intestinal fortitude of the press pack, they have pulled no punches in attacking the readers, listeners, new media interlopers and their fellow inhabitants of “Socialmedialand”.

In this, few provide better exemplars than Neil Cameron, normally a relatively low-key player on the scene. After a warning to Herald & Times staff came from Barclay McBain, Cameron quickly took to social media with a “what the boss said” Tweet that, to some, may have looked like a bit of career opportunism.

But Cameron has been more full-blooded in his online spats with retired journalist Brian McNally and particularly Phil Mac Giolla Bháin, who Cameron has described as both “a vile man” and “a scab”.

Some Neil Cameron Twitter exchanges

Now, Phil is not everybody's cup of tea, including a number of Celtic supporters, but he remains a figure who challenges the natural order, being on the outside of the Scottish media tent pissing in, against years of tradition and patronage in the private members' club.

And yet there is something desperate in all of this. Some have questioned why Cameron should have been so silent on the fate of Spiers (and Angela Haggerty) yet so abusive to Mac Giolla Bháin, invoking their common membership of the National Union of Journalists, as if the number one rule of the club is “Omerta”.

It's relatively easy to attack McNally as he presumably has few strings to pull for young journalists and has had the irritating habit of enjoying his retirement by criticising coverage of football issues. For this, he has drawn abuse from, among others, Keith Jackson.

Much of the current talk is of a column by Gordon Waddell, who has insisted that only the word of journalists on the scene at Hampden can be taken at face value over the events of the Scottish Cup Final.

The likes of Cameron and Spiers, naturally enough, support this while playing down Jackson's claim that every Rangers player was assaulted after the final.

But there's the rub. There is barely a shred of trust, respect or sympathy left for any Scottish sports journalist – and they have brought that state of affairs entirely on themselves.

Spiers remains the one who has done most to stand up for the integrity of his profession but he has got less fearless as time has gone on. And Spiers retains a haughtiness, sometimes verging on a sneering tone directed at the plebs who follow this game that he graces with his words, an attitude that is amplified by English, who seems to feed his not-inconsiderable ego by putting fans down.

Spiers and English will mock their own readers as derisively as Jackson (if a little more pithily), laugh up their sleeves at the antagonistic antics of Hugh Keevins and blindly ignore the absurdity of their fellow journos Chris Jack, Matt Lindsay et al.

And for this, they expect what – our trust? The people that have gone into every contortion possible to resist saying that Rangers Football Club was liquidated and the evidence of corruption at the heart of the Scottish game expect respect?

Cameron eventually did something to mention The Offshore Game report into corruption, after Spiers acknowledged its existence.

But it is an indictment on the entire industry that the best and most comprehensive treatment of the issue was by Robbie Dinwoodie – again retired – writing for the independent Bella Caledonia (aptly titled The Unreported).

And, after so conspicuously failing to stand together on real interference and even intimidation, why should they expect a level of regard so much higher than that which they (fail to) show the football public?

Will any of these journalists of note rally to the aid of Rachel Lynch, the latest writer to be harassed for saying things that are off-script – or will they offer her the same support that Jim Spence enjoyed?

What they are struggling to accept is that their relevance is diminishing as fast as the esteem in which they may once have been held.

Frankly, we don't need to know that a journalist was sent to Monaco to watch a draw that was broadcast live by UEFA.

We don't need to hear their ill-qualified insights into events of matches that were televised live (especially when some of those match reports have been written by people who weren't even at the game).

And for their “eye-witness reports” to carry any weight, those delivering them must have more than a long-lost sliver of credibility.

The one enduring skill of the overwhelming majority of the Scottish football media pack is to irritate fans enough to get a reaction to feed off.

In other words, the term, “football journalist”, has become synonymous with being a troll.

But, like a troll, that will soon all be water under the bridge – most of their careers are sailing down the river.

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