The press. Love it or hate it, it is often the main method of how we find out the inner workings of the clubs we admire or despise. We come to know individuals as trusted or untrusted, as positive or negative, or as another other trait or reverse trait that we see in a public figure.
The basics of the press in a free country is the belief that what is being written is objective. Admittedly with the advent of “internet journalism” and the rise of popularity of blogging sites, many outlets are not as objective as traditional media might have been years ago.
20 years ago, everything went through an editor and ended up in print, leaving those that write for a living as those who had their stories heard. Sometimes new media outlets still adopt this editorial review process, as we do, but many don’t. Sometimes such unedited passion can be great, sometimes not.
Nowadays, anyone can be the latest budding writer if they put their mind to it. Hell, if I can do it, anyone can.
Social media and personal websites offer a route to be another voice in the sea of voices, another opinion publicised for the sake of being fair.
The Ups And Downs Of Everyone As A Writer
Just like some of us are mechanics or lawyers or engineers or whatever, so writers are writers. Writers write, and they are supposed to do so objectively. I personally don’t consider myself a professional writer, despite the fact that I have made money in my career specifically from writing.
However, what if things weren’t as clear as we were lead to believe? Veterans of the writing scene will know about pieces called “advertorials” – essentially adverts written in the style of an editorial piece. Advertorials are, however, normally stipulated as such, and are evidenced by the fact that each piece will say something like “This piece is sponsored by x” rather than being written by a specific named writer.
There’s nothing wrong with advertorials – after all, things are stipulated as they are, that is, as indirect advertising. You know the deal, they know the deal, and you make your judgments accordingly.
However, what about if advertorials weren’t as up front about being what is essentially advertising? What if the people writing the stories were being paid to say good things about a particular person? What is that, and is it fair? Is that still free press?
We all, whether we care to admit it or not, have biases for and against any number of things. Journalists, for the most part, try to subvert their own feelings or other potential interfering factor in their writing. Their job is to “journal” what has happened, doing their best to strive to be objective and impartial.
Of course, we’re not all journalists. Take me for example – I’m an opinion writer, or a columnist at best, and I’m certainly not what I would personally qualify as a professional writer. My articles are opinion based, relying on facts and evidence as well as my thoughts, but they are spoken from my viewpoint – I don’t aim to write solely about what has happened, I write about what I think as well.
On the other hand, journalists are journalists – they are, or at least should be, obliged to be objective in their writing. If a journalist isn’t objective, they aren’t a journalist because they aren’t journaling the events of the story. It’s pretty simple.
Getting back to my original point, there is an increasing trend for PR companies to sell their products more effectively. Products no longer mean widgets you buy from a company, they can be anything from a person to a company to a drug. Products are marketed, and people make their opinions. Yes, some of the rubbish spouted by a company may well be rubbish, but if it is in the midst of an advert, you know not to take it at face value.
A common thing to do nowadays for companies is something called “astroturfing”. Taking its name from the original term “grass roots”, “astroturfing” is where a company fakes a website or other public entity to make it appear as though it is close to the action, written from the view of a real person who is a fan of a product. Sometimes “astroturfing” involves marketing departments faking names and identities to create a whole viral concept, whilst other times it employs people who appear to be objective in order to offer their viewpoint backed by finances that the reader is never aware of.
Sadly, as is the case with many industries, football writers are being paid on the side to say things that benefit clients who are willing to pay. I know of several writers who have written pieces because of agencies that they wouldn’t have done had they not been paid. It’s not nice, it feels pretty disingenuous, and it is corrupting what I would consider the ability to trust a writer.
Ok, So What About This Site? What Are You Doing?
I’ll be honest with you about Aston Villa Life as I have been honest with everyone who has ever asked to write for us. We’ve been open just over a year now, and we currently run out of my savings. All the costs to keep the site running, to advertise on Google and Facebook, and all of the hours put into finding and maintaining a stream of quality writers comes out of my pocket. I don’t get much money out of the advertising on the site – it works out at about £12 or so a month – so the remainder of the £60 or so it costs per month comes out of my own money. So, at present, we currently run at a loss.
I obviously don’t get paid to write for Aston Villa Life, and neither do any of our writers. If I appear as a pundit on TV or radio, I get paid my expenses of getting there and back, but that’s it. For me, Aston Villa Life really is a labour of love.
I started the project because I am passionate about Aston Villa, and I am passionate about giving a mouthpiece to the fans of the club too. As people are fully aware, I never started the project to fan my ego, nor create a solely “Matt Turvey” machine, I did it because I have the best interests of the club at heart, which is why I am always seeking new writers and new opinions – this is your community as much as it is mine.
Since starting the concept, I have focused all of my energies into the creation and development of this platform as a stand-alone entity, with a three year plan to take it from being a cost burden to a profit generator.
I’ve pulled back from my profession of being a solutions architect (a guy who designs networks and computer systems), partially because of my desire to do something different with our club for our fans, and partially because I damaged nerves in my arm and back so my old job isn’t overly practical nowadays. Writing, in that sense, is very much a catharsis as well as a business proposition.
Since we’ve existed, I’ve had a few chances to take money in order to alter my opinion in writing, but I’ve not taken them.
I’ve had giveaways from friends such as Johnny Nicholson and Richard Lee, who have kindly offered to give away books to our readers.
I’ve had a few companies offer small amount of money (normally about £20) to promote mutually beneficial products, such as sports betting, via a couple of unobtrusive lines at the bottom of an article.
However, I’ve never taken money to portray any individual in a good or bad light, and I have no intention of ever doing so either. If I have to run this site based on site donations, local business sponsors, or other deals, then so be it, but I’m not going to write articles differently because an agency offers me money.
The whole point of this article is to get you to realise that many articles out there that claim to be objective really aren’t. Many journalists and writers who claim to be unbiased are actually taking money from agencies and entities without declaring such income.
I don’t begrudge anyone an honest living, but I do expect to know if their writing involves their thoughts or the thoughts of what an entity can do for them. I expect their opinions on a player or other person to be fair, based on the evidence, because they are supposed to be spreading the news – in fact many of these people are the ones who create the story in the first place.
I expect all of these things but perhaps expectation can have both positive and negative connotations. However, to expect the free press to be free is, for me at least, a basic. All I can hope is that, sooner or later, those that are taking money to bias their views either admit it or stop being paid off. Otherwise, how can we ever trust a single thing that people write?
The Author
