Liverpool FC Forum

by **ivor_the_injun** » Tue Aug 10, 2004 11:04 am

First of all, let me state the obvious and say that Owen hasn't spoken to any other club.

This whole affair is a perfect example of how the media take a rumour and run around with it like headless chickens in order to fill more blank space. You'll notice that pretty much every news piece today includes something like "reports say" near the beginning. This is because not a single one of them believe a word of it, and so they're covering their backsides for when it turns out to be a load of old fuss over nothing more than contract technicalities. Once any one newspaper or website publishes a big news story such as this, the floodgates are open and all are free to quote that report.

If you hear players like Morientes linked, this is pure fabrication. Again, once one person mentions a name, everyone else will repeat it. If 10 newspapers and websites mention the same names, this doesn't make it any more true - they're all basing their "information" on the same spurious story.

I work for a national newspaper, and have many friends and contacts in news and sport reporting. The bottom line is that they always have a lot of space to fill on any given day, and let's face it - not a great deal worth reporting happened yesterday. The way these stories break is normally because an agent, or more likely someone acting on behalf of the agent, will tell a reporter something like "contract talks didn't go well yesterday", and then the reporter makes use of what we like to call "journalistic license" to turn those 6 words into 300 by thinking of what clubs would reasonably want Owen, which strikers we've previously been linked with etc. Then, on the back of something published with that in mind, a question gets fielded at Benitez's press conference, and given shaky ground like contract discussions, those in the loop at LFC will probably have asked him not to comment. It's very easy to make something like "no comment" sound like bad news. Did you murder someone at the weekend? "I wouldn't like to talk about anything like that". Doesn't sound good, does it?

I know that the majority of people here are pretty intelligent and have a good radar for bullsh*t, so I ask that we don't speculate further on it, particularly if you want Owen to stay. One very sad byproduct of reporting such as this is that agents have used leaks such as this as a technique to convince their client to move on, or to hold out for more money. For example, if someone showed Owen parts of this forum today, he'd think a sector of the fans had turned against him, which is less of an incentive to stay than if we were all in floods of tears at the foot of a poster of him.

by **maximus** » Tue Aug 10, 2004 11:31 am

very good post mate, and very tru, as I have already posted in the "Owen in real talks" thread, there are no reports in the Spanish press of this. This has spiralled out of control, from the initilal speculation in the echo yesterday.

Once again, a great player for LFC will be hammered and vilifiedby fickle fans, who want blood!!! :angry:

by **ivor_the_injun** » Tue Aug 10, 2004 1:46 pm

Sometimes I do wonder how many of the reporters on the Echo are from the red half. They certainly haven't reported this with the club's and fans' interests in this case.

Liverpool FC Forum

Let's not be part of the problem - The way the owen situation is reported

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