The lowest common denominator

The way the media selectively report the facts is hardly isolated to football, if any of you have an interest in science then Ben Goldacre at the Guardian is always excellent at pointing out lazy and irresponsible journalism. At least when it relates to football no one dies because of the media's sloppy standards, however when news relating to health is reported innaccurately in can quite easily result in people dying unnecessarily a la MMR scare for example.

However this is an Arsenal related site so I'm not going to bore you with talk about your prostates (pardon me if you're female and feel left out as you don't have one). I just happened to notice an interview with Nic Bendtner that was covered by Arsenal Mania at the end of last week, for some strange reason the English press didn't cover his comments at all:

"That is still hard for me to understand, and perhaps because I am young I am still making mistakes with how I speak to the press in England, because they are looking to trick you and cause a problem with your team mates and fans more often than they are trying to report the facts of the sport.

"It is nothing like I have seen before, but perhaps if I was older I would know to stay away from certain newspapers.

"Sweden is like Denmark, probably too polite to make up rubbish about players but in England it is not the same, anyone can print what they want and the truth is not so important. But I am learning this just as I am learning on the field also.

"At the end of the day, people will believe what they want and I try not to be distracted too much by these things, although it is not encouraging when you hear the fans boo you or complain because of a missed pass or shot."

Honest and spot on Mr Bendtner. The behaviour of such journalists is not just unprofessional, it is a downright embarassment. Obviously on the day that the mighty Jade Goody is honoured with a six page special in the brilliant Sun newspaper, it would not be fair to accuse the English media of residing in the gutter and writing any old dishonest drivel to make money, however I am not a fair person and I would like to accuse them of precisely that on this very day.

Call me hypocritical, I can be too quick to criticise sometimes, however what I will never do is deliberately misrepresent the truth to further my own interests. The media's response to Phil Brown's virtual breakdown last week was another good example of the exploitative vultures that they are, never let the facts get in the way of a good story; Myles Palmer summarises events succinctly here and gets across the rather sad human element to the story that the media are so keen to avoid. Do not believe all you read in the press, let the facts do the talking and make your own minds up, the problem these days is that our sad excuse for journalists are making it harder and harder to see the facts beneath an ever expanding sea of dishonest slurry.