WishyWell

Loo-kass

One of the first things you learn in journalism is that everyone thinks they can do your job. And, yes, there have been financial cutbacks in every editorial office that have seen the experience and, yes, quality of the reporters drop dramatically, as well as the workload increase. But... one of the other things you learn right at the start of a career in journalism is that the one thing that brings in more complaints than any other is making mistakes with people's names. And the sort of mistakes made in the reports mentioned in this thread are sloppy, show a lack of interest in anyone outside the Old Firm, and embarrass the hacks who do give a damn. What's worse, as Fatcalf points out, it has been happening regularly for a long time now. A correct picture caption, for example, is a rarity. It's yet another example of the Ugly Sisters' cancerous influence and dominance. Don't get me started...

I was told by a shareholder recently that McGhee was asked why none of the young players was given a chance in the 'bottom six' games, and he said that no one in the under-19s was good enough. Apparently he took little, or no, interest in the youths and so had no idea. Or maybe over the extremely short close season there was a stellar increase in ability...

I'll never forget that season when we romped the First Division, and Brian being the driving force in the great play that saw us do it. I may be wrong, but I've a feeling he was First Division Player of the Year - if he wasn't, he should have been. Sad news, yet again. RIP Brian.

Press launch is tomorrow. Look out for the resultant publicity shortly afterwards.

Around five anxious minutes. Then I asked a small boy to check it. After all, even a 12-year-old knows the difference between whose and who's...

As you're so keen on correct punctuation, spelling and general grammar, you might be interested to know that you should have used Who's, as in Who is, rather than Whose, as in Belonging to whom. You couldn't even get past the first word without a mistake so, yes, God save us from another cretin... At least the wee man's got high school still to complete. Your excuse is...?

Terrible news. I saw him outside Fir Park just last year when he was down for a coaching course and he looked as fit as when he played for us. He was really nice with any of the kids who approached him, too. Also sad to hear that Wilson Humphries's wife has just died. Condolences to both families. While I was typing this, I just heard from a journalist that Mowgli's death may have been suicide - I hope to God not. My heart goes out to his family.

Thank you.

"No chance. Not this one." - WishyWell senior

Thank you. I'm going to try to get in touch with him. And I hope you'll see me playing for the Well in 5/6 years too. I'm going to try my hardest. It's my dream!!! From WishyWell junior

...or even younger! My son started with the club when he had just turned 8, and while that was unusual at the time, the club have for the past few years had an intake at the age of 9, although the boys can't sign officially until the start of the under-11s season. I can understand my boy being upset at Rab Thomson leaving, as I have nothing short of the highest praise for the way he brings on young boys on the fitness/agility side of things, but it is a lesson for him in the way that football can bring sudden, and often cruel, changes at times - a lesson he'll need to learn if he is lucky enough to reach a decent level in the game. However, he is only 11, so i have gone easy on him and tried to accentuate the positive aspects of a new regime and new opportunities. Like Tam, I would also be interested in knowing if JG has experience in dealing with a youth system right down to the younger age-groups, or if,instead, he specialises in helping promising players make the jump from u-19s level to the first team, and developing them from there.

I agree but i will still miss him.

Hi, My dad let me use his logon name to put a message up. I am with Motherwell under 12s and I have just heard that Motherwell have sacked Rab Thomson to bring someone new in because we have a new manager. Rab was the fitness coach for the first team and all the youth teams and I think this is a big mistake because he is brilliant. He really knows his stuff and he is great at bringing out the best in you. I am really upset he has gone and if anyone knows him can they tell him that he'll be missed a lot.

Any idea how the younger teams got on? I think it was the 12s and 14s who were out there with the 19s.

Was driving into work this morning and heard that new Lady Gaga song, Papparazzi, on the radio. Out of the blue, as she was singing the chorus, the words: Well are gonna gub ya Well are gonna hump ya Hammer, batter Flamurtari came into my head, and fitted perfectly into the chorus. Either this is an omen ... or I'm turning into Ice Rink .

When we have time, I go to the under-19s games, and take my older boy, who is pro-youth with the club. It's good to see the boys one level below the senior squad, and my son really looks up to them.

The trap Keevins tends to fall into is that he is more and more seeing himself as Keevins the personality and he lets his opinion come into his writing. That's fine if you are writing a column, but not when it is supposed to be an objective report. Jim McLean, for example, is paid to give his opinion in a column - Keevins' job is to be a sports reporter, and so every time he writes subjectively in a sports report, he is not only doing his job.

I would agree. I was defending his position on the assumption that he had been given the the story to work on, either as a staff reporter or a freelance, as freelances who decline to take on a story when asked, don't tend to get asked again. If, however, he took it to them, it is a different matter, but until we know the truth of it, i think it's unfair to criticise the guy.

Whether or not you buy it, that's the way it works, especially when it is a reporter at the start of his career that is writing it. Reporters do the donkey work and provide the raw material, subs decide the heading, and often re-write. It's a hierarchy - often the subs lower down the chain are told the angle the paper wants to take and work accordingly... and sometimes the angle changes well after the story has been written. Even if he took his own angle, it could, and often would, be changed at the whim of a sub. As far as the newspaper naming them is concerned, it could be that they couldn't get the names in time (I don't know how easy/hard it is to get details from the Welsh authorities), or it could be that they just didn't bother. I can explain the reporting/publication process, but only the Scottish Sun would be able to tell you the specifics of this particular story. Personally, I'd like to have seen them named - but then, personally, I'd like to see them put in stocks outside Fir Park for public justice to be administered, so I'm maybe not coming at that part of the issue from the most objective point of view!

The 'Well fan who wrote it was also, I am sure, disappointed he was given this to do. Neither would he decide the angle that was taken. He probably feels the same way as the rest of us, but also has to put up with varying degrees of stick for having his name on it. On your second point, that is now an interesting matter. Now that they have been released without charge, I don't believe there is any restriction on anyone on this forum or anywhere else naming them, as long as anything you say is factually correct.

Definitely, but they will have been unable to do so once the arseholes had been arrested (sub judice). This may also explain the delay in the Wishy P and Sun reporting on it, as the article said that the pair have been released without charge, so the reporting restrictions would not apply from that point on. The club would have to weigh up the possibilities: would there be a chance that the nationals would miss the story, and would MFC then want to bring it to their attention; or would it be better to bring it to them from the angle the club want it presented... although, as has been said, the paper would then take the angle they wanted, if they saw it differently.

He may very well not have had that choice to make. The nationals scour the locals every week, and if it was on the front page of the Wishaw Press, as someone said, then it wouldn't have been hard to spot. If Scott was told to do the story, it would have seriously harmed his career chances if he were to refuse on the grounds that he supported the club, especially if he is trying to make his way in the trade. Reporters are supposed to write dispassionately about a subject (which makes it extremely noticeable when they, wrongly, inject their opinion into an article). I'm sure we can all think of examples of stories that have infuriated us because opinion or bias has come into it, rather than objective reporting. He is there to give the facts as they are, not to moralise on whether he should or shouldn't be carrying out the task assigned to him, or whether the story should be covered. That moralising is fine for readers, as that is their prerogative. I'm sure Scott didn't enjoy writing the story (or the fact that his name was attached to it, which, again, is not his choice), but wee all have things we are asked to do in our jobs that we don't like - if we could pick and choose the good bits of our jobs, wouldn't life be great? For the record, if you'll pardon the expression (!), I am not saying that people shouldn't be able to come on here and give their opinion, just that the criticism of Scott personally, without knowing how it works, was unfair. I don't know the guy, but 20-odd years ago I was in his position, and it's a harder and worse job now than it was then.

If he originated the story, stood by the 'unfair' fact to his bosses and vouched to his bosses that it was true and his words were not changed, then I suppose it could be argued that he was personally responsible. But it is a fact that most, if not all, stories in a paper are a collective effort by the time they go throught the reporter/news editor/copy sub/back-bench subs/chief sub and sometimes editor levels, so it would be difficult, or wrong, to hold one person personally accountable. If someone sues over a story, how often do you hear of the reporter being sued? It is the newspaper as a whole - if any individual is involved, it will be the editor. The reporter may be called as a witness, but that's as far as it goes. As far as saying something 'unfair' is concerned, unfortunately that is not a ground for complaint - it has to be wrong. Even then, I once had something completely wrong written about me in the Guardian and took legal advice, and was told not to bother, as it was a game for only the rich. Even if I won, it would prove too costly. The lawyer pointed out that he had once been described by a paper as "the fat lawyer" - it was unfair, as it had no relevance to the story, but was true, so there was nothing he could do about it. If I didn't know how it worked, I may hold a personal grudge against Darryl Broadfoot for something in a story that bore his byline, but I am well aware that, once a reporter has written something and passed it on, his influence ends and what appears in the paper is usually changed to some extent and, in some cases, can bear no resemblance whatsoever to what he wrote in the first place.

Keevins is at the other end of the spectrum as far as experience goes and is more responsible (!) for what he writes. What's more, he repeats much of it on Clyde 1, where he has more control over what goes out under his name, and where it is straight from the horse's arse's mouth