Post by Macmoish on Jun 27, 2011 6:38:17 GMT
It's applied generally - and locally to WBA. But I think
has certain relevance also for QPR (and other) fans
BIRMINGHAM MAIL
Transfer nonsense, Twitter and the rest...
By Chris Lepkowski on Jun 22,
This social media culture is wonderful.
Twitter, for instance, brings friends closer, it's immediate, settles differences and it throws new people together.
And can be amazingly funny when people start to filter home from nights out.
As far as the transfer circus and the media is concerned, we're not always the easiest of bedfellows.
Take Eiji Kawashima. The Japanese goalkeeper is a friend of mine. Not in reality - but I do follow him on Twitter.
Of course, this isn't the real Lierse goalkeeper, but a Twitter account set-up by someone to parody the real Kawashima, who for weeks has been telling everyone he will be joining Albion.
He was adamant that his signing was imminent.
The Baggies, meanwhile, denied this when first put to them. Then they just laughed. These days it simply irritates them - especially when the real Kawashima issues an ultimatum telling the Baggies to decide whether they want him or not.
Sorry, Eiji, they don't.
Such is the power of social media that a ridiculous story about Peter Odemwingie failing to agree terms with Arsenal - based on two 'friends' of his - was run by a Nigerian website.
Not a usual news source, just one which anyone of any age could set up in their bedroom and portray as a reputable provider of news.
Trouble is that people get sucked in. They see the reports on NewsNow and assume it might, just might, be true.
Such was the power of this report that Albion moved to issue a statement denying it all.
And who can blame them, not least when a UK-based agent is also repeating the false rumour on national radio to millions of listeners. As it happens Albion and Arsenal have had no discussions over Odemwingie, let alone got to a stage where he is quibbling over personal terms.
Arsenal might yet want Odemwingie. But they've done little about it so far.
Mulumbu, subject of a successful £5.5million bid from Fiorentina? No, he isn't. Nor has he been.
That's not to say he won't be one day in the future, but that's guesswork. Which is where a lot of this fuels social media panic, be it on Twitter or on Facebook.
A couple of websites report it in Italy and then it gets picked up and reported as news by the website branch of a national radio station - this much-listened-to radio station employ their own Midlands' reporters, who would have swiftly put their own web colleagues straight had their opinion been sought.
And that is the trouble these days. People are in such a rush to break stories that diligence no longer applies. Nobody bothers checking with clubs to see if a story is true. They might check with an agent to see if it's true - in 11 years of working in football I've come across about a dozen agents I really trust - but even then they might not bother.
Social media has not so much changed the way we work, it's shredded the rule book too.
The growth of Internet and, more so, Twitter and Facebook leads to frenzied excitement and fevered panic.
It's also fueled incorrect assumptions about my own job.
It was brought to my attention that one message-board poster made a reference to myself and another local newspaper being out of loop, implying we were only getting stories from the club. That's completely wide-of-the-mark. Tripe. If only I could get paid for such a relaxed lifestyle.
The official websites of many, if not all, clubs churn out quotes from press conferences and interviews. Not always, but probably 90 per cent of the time, it's the journalists who drive the questions which will appear on your club's official website. Furthermore, if I or any journalist relied on club information as a sole source for our news then we wouldn't last 10 minutes in the job, let alone 10 years or longer. We're simply more exposed now because others are willing to run stories without any checks.
In this climate of frenzied transfer activity - eight days BEFORE the window opens - it's the local media who have to mop up the mess of others, all in the name of providing accurate news. The growth of social media, the expansion of websites who claim to carry the 'latest news' - it's immediate, people demand news.
Let's not forget that newspaper journalists are still working for print publications first and foremost. Some of us will sit on information for the sake of our newspaper deadlines - hoping that the story doesn't break elsewhere.
And to get exclusives on every story would take some doing given the immediacy of news services who can report something (and then forget they ever reported it) - such as the TV station who claimed David Vaughan had already decided to join Albion. I can only presume Vaughan must have posted his reply to Albion via carrier-pigeon as they're still waiting for his decision. Funnily enough, this same TV station have not mentioned Vaughan since. Never wrong for long, eh...
In fact Vaughan wasn't due to deliver his answer until after returning from his holiday. Again, a few phone calls to the right people would have provided this answer.
Boateng, he was never close to joining Albion. Carson, he's still an Albion player.
Again, it's about sorting out the truth from the non-truths, half-truths or the not-yet-truths.
However, what I can do - as do my Birmingham Mail colleagues - is run stories which I know can be stood up, by several sources. Which is why my colleague Mat was able to run, with some confidence, an exclusive that Alex McLeish was wanted by Villa a full week before it happened. And if that means knocking down a rumour which isn't true, and we know isn't true, then we will do so. Every day if necessary. Sometimes we can slip up. But it won't be through negligence.
Some of us still are in the news business, not in the market for 'Internet hits' or 'website traffic'.
Others can fly the kites and get you excited or panicked about transfers which might or might not happen. More than 60 names have linked with Albion since the end of the last season - I have a list of them. So far two have signed. A few are potential targets.
These websites and social media networks have a place in society. And many fans love the speculation during the lull which is bandied around via various branches. But they can have a negative side too.
In the meantime, I'm off to find out what @general_krulak (he is real isn't he?) has been getting up to over in the not-so-real world.
blogs.birminghammail.net/westbromwichalbion/2011/06/transfer-nonsense-twitter-and.html
has certain relevance also for QPR (and other) fans
BIRMINGHAM MAIL
Transfer nonsense, Twitter and the rest...
By Chris Lepkowski on Jun 22,
This social media culture is wonderful.
Twitter, for instance, brings friends closer, it's immediate, settles differences and it throws new people together.
And can be amazingly funny when people start to filter home from nights out.
As far as the transfer circus and the media is concerned, we're not always the easiest of bedfellows.
Take Eiji Kawashima. The Japanese goalkeeper is a friend of mine. Not in reality - but I do follow him on Twitter.
Of course, this isn't the real Lierse goalkeeper, but a Twitter account set-up by someone to parody the real Kawashima, who for weeks has been telling everyone he will be joining Albion.
He was adamant that his signing was imminent.
The Baggies, meanwhile, denied this when first put to them. Then they just laughed. These days it simply irritates them - especially when the real Kawashima issues an ultimatum telling the Baggies to decide whether they want him or not.
Sorry, Eiji, they don't.
Such is the power of social media that a ridiculous story about Peter Odemwingie failing to agree terms with Arsenal - based on two 'friends' of his - was run by a Nigerian website.
Not a usual news source, just one which anyone of any age could set up in their bedroom and portray as a reputable provider of news.
Trouble is that people get sucked in. They see the reports on NewsNow and assume it might, just might, be true.
Such was the power of this report that Albion moved to issue a statement denying it all.
And who can blame them, not least when a UK-based agent is also repeating the false rumour on national radio to millions of listeners. As it happens Albion and Arsenal have had no discussions over Odemwingie, let alone got to a stage where he is quibbling over personal terms.
Arsenal might yet want Odemwingie. But they've done little about it so far.
Mulumbu, subject of a successful £5.5million bid from Fiorentina? No, he isn't. Nor has he been.
That's not to say he won't be one day in the future, but that's guesswork. Which is where a lot of this fuels social media panic, be it on Twitter or on Facebook.
A couple of websites report it in Italy and then it gets picked up and reported as news by the website branch of a national radio station - this much-listened-to radio station employ their own Midlands' reporters, who would have swiftly put their own web colleagues straight had their opinion been sought.
And that is the trouble these days. People are in such a rush to break stories that diligence no longer applies. Nobody bothers checking with clubs to see if a story is true. They might check with an agent to see if it's true - in 11 years of working in football I've come across about a dozen agents I really trust - but even then they might not bother.
Social media has not so much changed the way we work, it's shredded the rule book too.
The growth of Internet and, more so, Twitter and Facebook leads to frenzied excitement and fevered panic.
It's also fueled incorrect assumptions about my own job.
It was brought to my attention that one message-board poster made a reference to myself and another local newspaper being out of loop, implying we were only getting stories from the club. That's completely wide-of-the-mark. Tripe. If only I could get paid for such a relaxed lifestyle.
The official websites of many, if not all, clubs churn out quotes from press conferences and interviews. Not always, but probably 90 per cent of the time, it's the journalists who drive the questions which will appear on your club's official website. Furthermore, if I or any journalist relied on club information as a sole source for our news then we wouldn't last 10 minutes in the job, let alone 10 years or longer. We're simply more exposed now because others are willing to run stories without any checks.
In this climate of frenzied transfer activity - eight days BEFORE the window opens - it's the local media who have to mop up the mess of others, all in the name of providing accurate news. The growth of social media, the expansion of websites who claim to carry the 'latest news' - it's immediate, people demand news.
Let's not forget that newspaper journalists are still working for print publications first and foremost. Some of us will sit on information for the sake of our newspaper deadlines - hoping that the story doesn't break elsewhere.
And to get exclusives on every story would take some doing given the immediacy of news services who can report something (and then forget they ever reported it) - such as the TV station who claimed David Vaughan had already decided to join Albion. I can only presume Vaughan must have posted his reply to Albion via carrier-pigeon as they're still waiting for his decision. Funnily enough, this same TV station have not mentioned Vaughan since. Never wrong for long, eh...
In fact Vaughan wasn't due to deliver his answer until after returning from his holiday. Again, a few phone calls to the right people would have provided this answer.
Boateng, he was never close to joining Albion. Carson, he's still an Albion player.
Again, it's about sorting out the truth from the non-truths, half-truths or the not-yet-truths.
However, what I can do - as do my Birmingham Mail colleagues - is run stories which I know can be stood up, by several sources. Which is why my colleague Mat was able to run, with some confidence, an exclusive that Alex McLeish was wanted by Villa a full week before it happened. And if that means knocking down a rumour which isn't true, and we know isn't true, then we will do so. Every day if necessary. Sometimes we can slip up. But it won't be through negligence.
Some of us still are in the news business, not in the market for 'Internet hits' or 'website traffic'.
Others can fly the kites and get you excited or panicked about transfers which might or might not happen. More than 60 names have linked with Albion since the end of the last season - I have a list of them. So far two have signed. A few are potential targets.
These websites and social media networks have a place in society. And many fans love the speculation during the lull which is bandied around via various branches. But they can have a negative side too.
In the meantime, I'm off to find out what @general_krulak (he is real isn't he?) has been getting up to over in the not-so-real world.
blogs.birminghammail.net/westbromwichalbion/2011/06/transfer-nonsense-twitter-and.html
