The back page of this Tuesday's London Evening Standard leads with the
story that Tottenham Hotspur has barred ES reporters from attending games and
press conferences at the training ground. In doing so, the club has performed a
huge service to any true fan of the club.The paper claims that it will continue
to bring news of Spurs to the fans, but if their past efforts are anything to go
by, they won't be worth reading. Top of this particular class is the piece the
paper ran in January, claiming that Spurs were about to buy two Dutch players
from AZ Alkmaar, Tim de Cler and Kew Valiens in an exchange deal for Edgar
Davids. Authoritatively written by Mark Alford, it went into some detail of the
deal.Except sadly it was all nonsense. Mr Alford had simply been surfing the
Tottenham message boards and alighted upon a set-up perpetrated by a member of
glory-glory.net, danners49. He was fed up with newspapers stealing their stories
from message boards and claiming them as their own. So he set up a simple scam;
invent a story, post a bogus link and see who bites. Mr Alford was that man. The
post claimed that this deal was on the cards, and featured a hilariously bad
translation from Dutch into English allegedly taken from Dutch site voetbal.nl.
The link did not work because it did not exist.So what did the London
Lite/Evening Standard (for they are one and the same) do? Did they follow the
link? No. Did they call the Tottenham Press Office to verify the story? No. They
simply reproduced the piece without quoting the source and claimed the credit.
The morning edition of the London Lite carried the story, and it was reproduced
later in the day in the Standard. By the time the evening paper hit the news
stands, all the message boards were laughing. danners49 owned up to the scam and
we all enjoyed seeing this lazy and unprofessional journo exposed. From that
time on, the Standard hasn't really had much credibility with a lot of Spurs'
fans.The Metro web site carries some indignant claims by David Mellor
comparing Tottenham's 'censorship' to that of the Russian newspaper Pravda. The
comparison is apt, but perhaps more suited to the ES, which as we see has been
proven to make up stories without checking the facts. Could it be that it is for
that reason and not the criticism that it has been banned?Because if Tottenham
were to ban papers that criticised them, after the past 10 days the press
conferences would consist of Martin Jol and a tea urn. The Observer last Sunday
carried a lengthy article highly critical of the club and its officers. Such
diverse sources as Henry Winter, Stan Collymore and Mark Lawrenson have echoed
the same sentiments. But has the club banned The Telegraph, the Mirror and the
BBC? No. Why not? Perhaps because they accept the right of free expression, but
draw the line at invention and fiction?It is almost unbelievable that the
Standard's has managed to get themselves banned in this way. Whatever the club
has covered itself in of late, it sure don't smell like glory. But when handed a
loaded shotgun and presented with a barrel of fish, the Standard took aim and
promptly blew a hole in its own foot. So no longer will their reporters be able
to attend press conferences at our club. But Deputy Sports Editor Steve Cording
says the Standard "will continue to bring you, our readers, all the latest news
from Spurs, despite the ban". And why not? They've already shown that they won't
let the facts get in the way of a good story.
Linked here: http://www.spurscommunity.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=19327
