Mark Warburton dismisses talk of him walking away from Rangers...

[Rousseau 10,821]

As you know, that would require a huge change in media working practice, from owner through editor down to journalist. Ironically, the journalist is probably the one who would most like to see such a change - far more satisfying to work on a long, involved piece than grind out 500 words of attention grabbing cobblers - but since what they write won't see the light of day unless they package it in the way an employer wants, they do as they are bid. They all have mouths to feed, after all.

 

With the current business model so heavily reliant on clicks, you can see why papers only want what we might call 'pish' to lure punters in. But it's unsustainable in the long run, because I believe the majority of customers don't want the Barnum & Bailey approach. Sensationalist claims of impending doom tend to lose their effectiveness at the eighth or ninth time around - Frankie's #Rangersbad, echoing the media desperation which has seen even merited criticism of the Scottish Government dismissed as part of an #SNPbad campaign of crying wolf, will drive football customers away just as politically minded customers have abandoned newspapers for their analyses.

 

The appetite for pot-stirring rubbish grows ever smaller, outside the fantasist-obsessive world of bloggers or, on here, the Cult Of Rabness, gathered around the pyramid with the all seeing eye atop it, intoning arcane chants about how poor our signings are, asking where King's money is, ignoring the lessons of The Fall, etc.

 

There's only a small window left for some outfit to reject the click bait route and focus on high quality, before traditional media is rejected completely and irrevocably. Interviewing widely, and recognising that the people spoken to are people, with all the foibles that come with humans, and not some de-personalised representative of a knuckle dragging monolith, could find an audience - but this is an exceptionally conservative country, where anyone business vision usually takes it elsewhere. Many years ago I thought Graham Spiers was the man to do this - he had wit, elegance of tone, an interest beyond Glasgow's boundaries. No doubt we all have our opinions on how that worked out.

 

Again, there's an irony - serious, forensic, well written examination of just about every football club (and certainly Rangers - I doubt anyone takes a board member's 'word for it' anymore) could produce interesting and potentially sensational copy - the industry has been horribly mismanaged for decades if not longer. Instead of which we get acres of print about flares, songs and Kris Boyd's psychic insights. The meat is there, but is usually ignored in favour of a thin diet of gruel and bullshit.

 

#Rangersbad can't be a media crutch for ever. The club has been for nearly half a decade the go-to guy for easy sensationalism. It's certainly worked for the industry to a point, but it can't be used forever - at some point we either croak completely or stabilise. I think most of us here feel we're stabilising. If that turns out to be true, the media will have to either catch up or be left behind.

 

My response is not up to the standard you've set, but I will say: We can only hope.

[andy steel 0]

Sorry to revive a dead thread but the sad news of Terry Wogan's passing throws what we do in our lives into sharp relief. Life is very short, right enough.

 

How many people working in the media think they'll be remembered with affection or love the way a David Bowie or a Terry Wogan will be? I'm not claiming they need to reinvent the wheel or aim for sainthood but surely anyone with an ounce of self respect would prefer not to be thought of as a dullard, oaf or bien pensant lackey. No doubt people who are exceptionally well regarded by millions only become so because they have that extra spark which most of us are missing, but that's no excuse for us mere mortals not to try.

 

I gained very little from school, but the one thing I did get was the understanding that when I was wearing the school tie, I was representing the school. It was what employers, never ones to care about the beautiful English language, call a 'transferable skill', I've tried to use the idea all through my life to not behave in such a way as to embarrass whatever employer I work for, or my family, or most importantly for a comment on Gersnet the team I love to bits.

 

Such a view means I've never been in any doubt about certain aspects of our support - they're kind of hard to miss from time to time - but that self-awareness has never meant an unqualified support for anyone who wanders along, yelling the latest fashionable catch-phrase about Rangers (take your pick - 'vile' has been the adjective of the last few years, but it's always strongly challenged by knuckle-dragger, Neanderthal, and a new entry at No.6, das Herrenvolk) and somehow thinking that hurling abuse at people screaming abuse at you is somehow a solution worthy of adults.

 

It's not a question of there being no problem, but a question of how you solve the problem. And achieving that outcome takes ability.

 

Celebrity has never been more transient, not more meaningless, but there still remains a 'Premier League' of celebrity which is gained by real achievement. Bowie, Wogan, Gore Vidal, Patrick Moore, Dickie Attenborough: no doubt in the near future my life will be dimmed a little by the loss of Clive James, David Attenborough, and the other faces which shaped my cultural experience. UNPOPULAR SENTENCE INCOMING Of all the people I've read, listened to or seen following Scottish football, only two stand out as worthy of joining this company, Archie MacPherson and Graham Spiers.

 

Archie, not because of his commentating, which was in all honesty a bit hit and miss. His writing is excellent though, and is all the better because it was informed by his travels around the world working for the BBC. He covered Olympics in the USA and South Korea, fascist military dictatorship in Argentina, communist totalitarianism in the USSR and the Czech Republic; his borader world view allowed him to treat Scotland's problems, real as they are, with a degree of perspective.

 

Graham is - and I refuse to change this opinion despite all he's written about people like me - the single best writer Scottish football has produced. I never really cared for McIlvaney, perhaps an age thing as he was a little before my time, but he seemed slightly contrived, the professional Scotsman from the coalfields. Very likely an unfair assessment but that's mine.

 

Graham, like every name I've listed so far, refused to talk down to his audience. He didn't confine himself to the boring goldfish bowl of Old Firm immaturity. He treated players, managers and fans as people who might enjoy more than a twenty word paragraph. I admit things have changed over the years and that the relentless focus on Glasgow's dimwits has dragged Graham down to their level. But the point I'm groping for, I think, is that it isn't too late, and that if anyone is to achieve anything from a lifetime spent covering two big football teams, they're going to have to raise their game beyond the point where they're publishing (going by the confusion of statement and counter-statement we have been given) unsupportable accusations, or trying to make a point amid the howling maelstrom of social media. But he needs to get above the herd and get some fresh air, because as it stands his memorial will be some funny diaries in the 1990's and some shit on his shoes from splashing about in the squalid, dirty gutters of Old Firm obsessives.

 

Freedom of speech, as is often said, doesn't extend to the right to shout 'fire!' in a crowded theatre.

 

Life is very short, but it isn't too late yet. Come on, Graham.

Edited February 23, 2017 by andy steel

[jhunter 0]

Graham is - and I refuse to change this opinion despite all he's written about people like me - the single best writer Scottish football has produced.

 

 

thanks man you've given me a right good laugh this cold january morning

[andy steel 0]

Wish I was as cheery as you. I get down in the dumps in a big way, and not even the football is allowed to be a way out of it anymore.

 

It's just depressing.

[trublusince1982 243]

You have obvious love and admiration for the writing profession, that's why i find it so bewildering that you would not forgo a man who besmirches what once was the good name of journalism by continually writing blatant lies.

 

I hope for yourself and others who care deeply for these things get to see the change you deserve, the only advice i would give is look for better men or women to place such an important task upon. They should have integrity in bucket fulls

[Tannochsidebear 2,429]

I generally enjoy reading your stuff Andy (nationalist pish aside!), and I totally agree with the first 5.5 paragraphs of your post above.

 

But you have totally lost your marbles, with due respect, if you think Spiers is anything other than a bigoted liar. You are a far better writer than him, as are a few others on here. In his very early years when he wrote about golf I understand he was worth reading, although my self-imposed ban on the Herald meant I wouldn't buy or read his stuff anyway. But his lack of understanding of tactical matters in football has always made him a joke figure in Scottish football journalistic circles, and to cover for this he went down the road of controversy, and the easiest way to win favour is to have a go at Rangers, which he has done for the best part of 20 years.

 

To mention Spiers in an article mourning Wogan, Bowie, Attenborough and even McPherson (May that be long time off yet) is doing all of them a huge injustice.

 

No right thinking Bear will mourn Spiers, that's for sure.

[andy steel 0]

You have obvious love and admiration for the writing profession, that's why i find it so bewildering that you would not forgo a man who besmirches what once was the good name of journalism by continually writing blatant lies.

 

I hope for yourself and others who care deeply for these things get to see the change you deserve, the only advice i would give is look for better men or women to place such an important task upon. They should have integrity in bucket fulls

 

I can understand this point of view entirely. But...

 

To be quite honest I'm struggling to believe Spiers just made his story up. Plainly I have to go with the statements we have been given and, from them, it seems like he did. But I'm finding it difficult to believe he just decided to invent a story about a director and publish it. I appreciate this isn't likely to be a widely shared view, and the reaction on social media from haters has been outrageous, but looked at objectively it makes no sense to simply invent a libel and run with it. To what possible end?

 

Even allowing for the amorality of journalism (I don't share the view that it was once any better - it's always been about sales) this would be a mad route to go down for any writer.

 

My fear is that his claim is somehow borne out to be true, which will be a PR catastrophe. Every day that goes by without further statement certainly suggests the opposite - a gross error of judgement on Graham's part and a collective loss of composure by the social & MS media commentariat. Even so, my political judgement, what TB calls my

 

nationalist pish

 

makes me very, very suspicious of this whole affair - while on the surface it looks like a minor victory for Rangers in the battle against media negativity, as usual the narrative has been instantly altered to focus not on the publishing of what we must, in the absence of other evidence, regard as a libel, but on how awful Rangers is. Politically, we not nimble footed enough, we are never nimble footed enough, and I'm always extremely wary of anything which looks like a win simply because I don't think we're savvy enough to achieve one. I sincerely hope I am 100% wrong.

 

But you have totally lost your marbles, with due respect, if you think Spiers is anything other than a bigoted liar. You are a far better writer than him, as are a few others on here. In his very early years when he wrote about golf I understand he was worth reading, although my self-imposed ban on the Herald meant I wouldn't buy or read his stuff anyway. But his lack of understanding of tactical matters in football has always made him a joke figure in Scottish football journalistic circles, and to cover for this he went down the road of controversy, and the easiest way to win favour is to have a go at Rangers, which he has done for the best part of 20 years.

 

To mention Spiers in an article mourning Wogan, Bowie, Attenborough and even McPherson (May that be long time off yet) is doing all of them a huge injustice.

 

No right thinking Bear will mourn Spiers, that's for sure.

 

Well, to be fair, I can write what I like without worrying about length, tone, deadline or editorial interference, so it's far easier to post on Gersnet than it is to work for The Herald.

 

I know Graham is religious but I don't think I'd call him bigoted, just mistaken and wasting his time.

 

You're right of course about the stature of the world famous people listed and Graham's place in relation to them - I'm certain he would agree as well - but the point I was trying to make is that working in and focusing on the Glasgow fishbowl is only hindering his ability, and, the secret goal of anyone who writes, his posthumous reputation.

 

When the BBC cut together chat show highlights from the 70's they haul out Orson Welles on the cinema 1935-1975, or Richard Harris on the poetry of Christy Brown, or Kenneth Williams and Jimmy Reid on the Union battles of the 70's. Any sighting of Rod Hull and his God-awful Emu are all the more crass in comparison. Who does Graham want to remembered like, Orson Welles or Rod Hull?

 

Finally, all Bears should be able to think for themselves, I'm not a fan of talking about 'right-thinking'. It sounds too much like 'Celtic-minded' for my liking!

Edited January 31, 2016 by andy steel

[colinstein 294]

come off it Andy. Spiers writes about Rangers for a target audience of Celtic supporters. He's always going to be negative about us. He's no better than McGillivan.His claims that he supports the 'gers are ludicrous lies.

Can't understand why you think he's a good writer...way behind Jim Traynor in my view

[RANGERRAB 3,732]

come off it Andy. Spiers writes about Rangers for a target audience of Celtic supporters. He's always going to be negative about us. He's no better than McGillivan.His claims that he supports the 'gers are ludicrous lies.

Can't understand why you think he's a good writer...way behind Jim Traynor in my view

 

Hopefully Friday was the beginning of the end for Spiers. Will any editor be daft enough to employ him again? It's overlooked just what he got sacked for i.e. trying to retract his employer's apology after he couldn't verify allegations he previously made about an uin-named Rangers director in an article written by him.

[Bearman 9]

Rangers and C*ltic fans are united in despising sections of the media...they are even united in their dislike of Craig Thomson the ref, not to mention the crazy facial recognition idea put forward by the spfl using tax-payers money.

 

But there is one difference that sticks out - They enjoy Spiers writing lies to the extent they believe them.

 

Edit: Just found out Wogan died today...quite a lot of celebrities have passed on this year so far, and it's still January!!

Edited January 31, 2016 by Bearman