press gaffes

Daily Express, Daily Star issue front page apologies, pay damages

Today was a historic day for newspaper apologies. A sad, shameful, embarrassingly historic day.

Two UK papers controlled by the same owner (Express Newspapers) issued front page apologies to a British couple, Kate and Gerry McCann. The apologies will be repeated in the related Sunday editions of both papers, the Sunday Express and Daily Sunday Star.

In more than 100 articles, the papers had repeatedly and forcefully suggested that the couple were responsible for the disappearance of their young daughter. Roy Greenslade of the Guardian summed up the papers’ work:

This was no journalistic accident, but a sustained campaign of vitriol against a grief-stricken family. The stories were not merely speculative, but laced with innuendo which continually made accusations against the McCanns on the basis of anonymous sources and without any hard evidence.

Wild claims, often made by unattributed sources to Portuguese newspapers, were then spun even more negatively by the Express and Star titles. Of course, they were not the only papers to carry prejudicial material, but they were by far the worst.

Realizing that it could not win in court, and could not defend their work, Express Newspapers negotiated a settlement with the couple that includes the apologies and a payment of roughly $1 million. This is the apology published by the Daily Express (”The World’s Greatest Newspaper”):

The Daily Express has taken the unprecedented step of making a front-page apology to Kate and Gerry McCann.
We did so because we accept that a number of articles in the newspaper have suggested that the couple caused the death of their missing daughter Madeleine and then covered it up.
We acknowledge that there is no evidence whatsoever to support this theory and that Kate and Gerry are completely innocent of any involvement in their daughter’s disappearance.
We trust that the suspicion that has clouded their lives for many months will soon be lifted.
As an expression of its regret, the Daily Express has now paid a very substantial sum into the Madeleine Fund and we promise to do all in our power to help efforts to find her.
Kate and Gerry, we are truly sorry to have added to your distress.
We assure you that we hope Madeleine will one day be found alive and well and will be restored to her loving family.

It was a questionable decision to begin the apology with a statement that seems to suggest that the paper is doing something noble, and purely of its own choosing. A front page apology was a necessity, and a long overdue one at that. So many of the offending stories had been on the front page that to offer anything less in terms of placement would have been unacceptable.

The Express, and the Daily Star (apology here), took this step because they finally came to see they had been wholly irresponsible and wanted to avoid a massively expensive lawsuit. I don’t mean to suggest there isn’t any genuine remorse at the papers, but it’s not the sole motivation for the apologies. It’s likely not even the dominant one.

Since this website launched in fall of 2004, the most notable apologies have consistently appeared in the UK press. But two papers with front page apologies on the same day, and two repeats to come? Yes, you could call that unprecedented. But the actions that led to this event bring other words to mind.

…from Press think

Getting the Politics of the Press Right: Walter Pincus Rips into Newsroom Neutrality

The important thing is to show integrity– not to be a neuter, politically. And having good facts that hold up is a bigger advantage than claiming to reflect all sides equally well.

It is rare that a single article advances American press think. In fact, it is rare for American press think to advance at all, which is one of the reasons our press is so vexed these days. Take Clark Hoyt’s latest effort as New York Times public editor. It goes like this:

Many readers have complained to me that the Times is not “shooting down the middle” in its coverage of the 2008 campaign. But I’ve been monitoring and grading the coverage myself, and I have a surprise for some of you. “The Times has not been systematically biased in its news coverage, even if it has occasionally given ammunition to those who claim otherwise.”

Ta-da… An unbiased press! Now I do not doubt his word. Clark wouldn’t cook the books. But this is a conversation that’s savagely stuck, gamed not to go anywhere— for all sides. Professional journalists do not improve the situation when they double down on their neutrality and present objectivity as a truth claim about their own work. It is this kind of claim that compels people to furnish—furiously—more chapter and verse in the very bad and very long book of media bias. Which then causes Hoyt to speak lines like, “Bias is a tricky thing to measure, because we all bring our biases to the task.”

The only exit from this system is for people in the press to start recognizing: there is a politics to what they do. They have to get that part right. They have to be more transparent about it.

But this recognition is circuit-frying for the press we inherited from the Watergate era, and the long arc of professionalization before that. For it means that political argument isn’t really “separate” from news at all, even though the priesthood wants it to be, and still preaches that. There’s a reason Daniel Okrent considered his most important column as public editor this one. (Is the New York Times a liberal newspaper? “Of course it is,” on social issues at least. It reflects the city where it is made.)

The informed display of political conviction

Josh Marshall’s TPM Media operation is a new media newsroom that does political reporting in the same space as the big providers. Marshall believes in accountability journalism, sticking with stories, digging into public records for information, getting to the bottom of things, verifying what you think you know, correcting the record when you get it wrong.

TPM marries these traditional virtues to open expressions of outrage, incredulity marking certain political figures as ridiculous or beyond the pale, and the informed display of political conviction. These make it obvious to any reader of Talking Points Memo that Marshall is a liberal Democrat skeptical of the Bush agenda, though not a dogmatic one. His is the transparency route to trust and success in political journalism. A key crossing point came last month when Marshall and company won a George K. Polk Award for excellence in reporting on the legal system.

The way Marshall figures it, the important thing is to show integrity— not to be a neuter, politically. Having good facts that hold up is a bigger advantage than claiming to reflect all sides equally well. TPM’s homegrown mix combines political argument, dogged investigative work, news aggregation, a filtered community forum, some media criticism, and user-assisted reporting.

(Marshall discussed his approach, and I commented on it, on KCRW’s “politics of culture” show, hosted by Kevin Roderick of LA Observed, with Mark Glaser of Media Shift joining us. Listen here. Also, I will be joining in a forum at TPM Cafe’s Book Club next week that is not unrelated to points made here.)

Uncoupling fairness from neutrality

If the press has to get its own politics right to do news well and remain a force for public good, then future success in the production of news may hinge on the quality of political argument and ideological experiment within the pro tribe itself. That’s a conversation that isn’t happening yet, but there is action everywhere.

Marshall’s success is one example. Keith Olberman anchoring political coverage for MSNBC while also engaging in “special commentaries” that denounce Bush for world class denial and criticize Hillary Clinton for fratricide— that’s another. Now comes James Poniewozik of Time making the case for disclosure. Political journalists, tell us who you voted for! “The biggest reason to go open kimono is that the present system does what journalism should never do: it perpetuates a lie,” says Poniewozik.

Modern political journalism is based on the bogus concept of neutrality (that people can be steeped in campaigns yet not care who wins) and the legitimate ideal of fairness (that people can place intellectual integrity and rigor over their rooting interests). Voting and disclosing would expose the sham of neutrality—which few believe anyway—and compel opinion and news writers alike to prove, story by story, that fairness is possible anyway. Partisans, bloggers and media critics are toxically obsessed with ferreting out reporters’ preferences; treating them as shameful secrets only makes matters worse.

I agree. Uncoupling fairness (needed) from neutrality (not) is a critical and positive step. And I’m with Jeff Jarvis, writing for The Guardian: “The more journalists tell us about their sources, influences and perspectives, the better we can judge what they say.” But disclosing whom you voted for (Obama for Poniewozik, Clinton for Jarvis) is only a part of it. In many ways, the easiest part. Political press think needs a deeper overhaul. The really tricky question is not, “whom did you vote for?” but “what are you doing with your power?” And how are you generating power and authority in the first place, behind what claims?

The courage to admit you’re a participant

Walter Pincus has been at the Washington Post for some 35 years as a reporter, most of it specializing in the intelligence world and the national security state. (He was also executive editor of the New Republic during Watergate, and worked for a brief time on a Senate committee.) Pincus, I think, is one of the best reporters in Washington; and he has his own ideas about journalism.

He proved that when he was asked to write an essay for a new magazine called Frank: Academics for the Real World, which is published by the Clinton School of Public Service in Arkansas. It is this piece that moves the ball down the field. “Power of the Pen: A Call for Journalistic Courage” is the title. Thing is, it’s not online, so barely anyone has seen it.

Pincus does something rare for any mainstream journalist: he openly argues for a more political press. He even uses the word “activist,” which is forbidden in the mainstream newsroom code. And he says that courage in political reporting sometimes means the courage to admit you’re a participant—a player, a power in your own right—within the struggle for self-government, the battle for public opinion and the politics of the day.

Jim Lehrer of PBS would turn on his heel and walk away from Walter Pincus on some of these points. Leonard Downie, executive editor of the Post, would probably blanch. Of course those are the most interesting parts.

For instance, Pincus describes the rise of neutrality as a loss of rights and a conversion downward for the political press.

Owners, editors and reporters today rarely push issues they believe government should take up. If a vote were taken among editors of the major daily newspapers, the vice presidents of network news editions, television and radio anchors, and, I hate to say, probably even most younger print and electronic reporters, the result would be that few to none want or believe they have the right to shape government actions. They don’t want to play activist roles in government—either personally or professionally—unless, of course, it could affect the bottom line.

If Lou Dobbs and his “apocalyptic centrism” are a ratings hit for CNN, he can stay. But for the deciders in the news business, the fiction of floating above politics is the better way to prosper. To Pincus that’s positively lame.

I believe this failure is a threat to our democracy and a poor example for the rest of the world. This is my romantic and unfashionable view of journalism, but it is the one that caused many of us to take up the profession in the first place.

Undoing what Deaver did

“The Power of the Pen” builds on a short essay Pincus wrote in 2006 for Nieman Watchdog, which is online. There he described a very concrete way in which the presidency had brought the news media under greater control. Michael Deaver started it during the Reagan Years. By giving early guidance to the networks about where the President would be speaking and what he plans to say to whom, Deaver began to edit the news himself:

He turned that meeting, which began in prior administrations to help network news television producers plan use of their camera crews each day, into an initial shaping of the news story for that evening.

Independent judgment in the press was eroded, which Pincus counts as a power shift. When you commit cameras and extend coverage based on what the White House says it plans to say, you cede power over the news to the President. There’s mission creep:

The Washington Post, which prior to that time did not have a standing White House story scheduled each day (running one only when the President did something new and thus newsworthy), began to have similar daily coverage.

This turns precious news space into a messaging system for political controllers. Pincus marvels at how being able to “stay on message” is considered a crucial skill by Washington reporters, when this is the very method that reduces them to stenographers.

Of course, the “message” is the public relations spin that the White House wants to present and not what the President actually did that day or what was really going on inside the White House.

The press was getting boxed in by its own routines, including its fascination with the inside story.

This system reached its apex [in 2006] when the White House started to give “exclusives” — stories that found their way to Page One, in which readers learn that during the next week President Bush will do a series of four speeches supporting his Iraq policy because his polls are down. Such stories are often attributed to unnamed “senior administration officials.” Lo and behold, the next week those same news outlets, and almost everyone else, carries each of the four speeches in which Bush essentially repeats what he’s been saying for two years.

When what’s going on is public relations — not governing, the press still feels it must extend coverage because to refuse it would seem… too political. Pincus knows this. Still, he says journalists should refuse to publish “in a newspaper or carry on a TV or radio news show any statements made by the President or any other government official that are designed solely as a public relations tool, offering no new or valuable information to the public.”

Quit your part in the propaganda system. Stop enabling message control. No “standing” or automatic coverage should be granted. No spin room, either. We have to undo what Deaver did and re-gain some of that lost territory.

Looking to the past for better press think

Pincus, I think, is well aware that he is no longer hugging the shore of mainstream press think, but drifting out to sea. And so he turns to the past to get his bearings. To William Allen White of Kansas, who helped explain and promote Theodore Roosevelt’s progressive ideas, speaking to the nation from the Emporia Gazette. And to Lincoln Steffens, the great muckraker (and progressive) of the early 1900s, who wrote “Shame of Cities,” a series about municipal corruption.

Steffens started the flame that awards like the George K. Polk keep alive. About his articles explaining the corrupt machines in St. Louis, Minneapolis, Chicago, he says, “They were written with a purpose, they were published serially with a purpose, and they are reprinted now together to further that same purpose.” The politicians “will supply any demand we may create. All we have to do is to establish a steady demand for good government.” (Yes, the progressives overestimated what could be done with publicity and exposure alone.)

Creating demand in the country for more transparent and accountable government is the political part of the reporting project Steffens undertook with his “shame” series. “All very unscientific,” he wrote.

But then, I am not a scientist. I am a journalist. I did not gather with indifference all the facts and arrange them patiently for permanent preservation and laboratory analysis. I did not want to preserve, I wanted to destroy the facts.

I wanted to destroy the facts. That’s Steffens, disclosing his agenda. He wanted to see if the findings in his report, “spread out in all their shame,’” would “set fire to American pride,” and change what was acceptable to voters and influential citizens.

That was the journalism of it. I wanted to move and to convince. That is why I was not interested in all the facts, sought none that was new, and rejected half those that were old.

Steffens, I think, would know how to deal with an accusation of bias.

The fourth branch of government

By re-claiming White and Steffens as heroes, Pincus is dissenting from the view you can hear in this account from columnist Matt Miller, who five years ago went searching for the limits of press neutrality.

“I don’t think that if you sat in on page-one meetings over the course of six months,” says Steve Coll, managing editor of The Washington Post, “you would hear any discussion about ‘We ought to do this because we want to put it on the map.’ You have to see the media as chronicling the public square. When nobody shows up in the public square to talk about what you would wish them to talk about, is the person standing in the back with an open notebook the structural cause of that?”

It’s a vivid image of a blameless press: the open notebook on a windswept public square. Miller interprets what Coll is saying:

The national press, despite its power and occasional hobbyhorses, sees its role as “witnessing,” as serving up a “daily diary of debate,” as offering “a platform for independent inquiry and investigation” — but not as setting the terms of public discussion.

Even though it does have that power, at times. Miller again:

I asked Downie, “Should the news side of an organization like yours have a perspective on what are the most important challenges facing the country?”“No,” Downie said instantly.

Walter Pincus disagrees. And he has a theory, which starts with Edmund Burke on the rise of a “fourth estate” and winds up with Downey’s instantaneous “No.” I summarize:

Whoever can speak to the public as a whole has political power. This power can be used for good or ill. Some who have used it for good have sought to influence government. The framers of the Constitution were familiar with this type of editor, and so freedom of the press protects the power of the pen. But it also protects the kind of press that would shrink from using its power, or re-claiming it. This is where courage is necessary. But recent history isn’t very encouraging.

“Transmitters of other people’s ideas…”

In the 1950s Douglas Cater called the press the fourth branch of government. “The reporter is the recorder of government but also a participant,” said Cater. Since then, official policy has been toward a less political press, less inclined to see itself as a participant, even as complaints about bias have risen. This cycle has weakened journalism. The fairness doctrine, an official policy of even handedness, spread “backward” from television to newspapers. Media concentration, publicly-traded stock, and the rise of monopoly news gatherers helped enthrone the notion that providers of news should be onlookers.

Today’s mainstream print and electronic media want to be neutral, unbiased and objective, presenting both or all sides as if they were on the sidelines in a game in which only the players—the government and its opponents—can participate. They have increasingly become common carriers, transmitters of other people’s ideas and thoughts, irrespective of import, relevance and at times even accuracy.

Reporters with depth of knowledge are capable of challenging government and getting beyond he said, she said, a tepid style of truthtelling. But the media corporation shifts its people around a lot. They switch towns, beats, assignments so often that it’s impossible for most reporters to build up any independent base of authority. They can’t challenge spin because they don’t know enough. So they become transmitters. Neutrality valorizes a loss of footing and self-respect.

This is bad news for the press if you care about having a strong one, capable of challenging the line of the day. But fine for the media, which finds it far cheaper to farm out “context” and “analysis” to ex-government officials. They came by their knowledge at another sector’s expense.

To wrap this up, a question via Sir Pincus for public editor Clark Hoyt: What if the very thing the New York Times is doing for reasons of trust—remain officially neutral, like Switzerland—is causing more people to trust the Times less and less? You can say those people are misguided. You can prove them wrong with better stats. Or you can read “the Power of the Pen” when it comes online, and start your re-think right there.

* * *
After Matter: Notes, reactions & links…Weldon Berger got permission to publish the Walter Pincus essay, so it is now online: The Power of the Pen: A Call for Journalistic Courage.

Tom Edsall, now of the Huffington Post, formerly of the Washington Post, interviewed Walter Pincus about his views on this subject, March 22, 2008. Excerpt:

EDSALL: You said the Nieman article “Fighting Back Against the PR Presidency” got you in trouble.PINCUS: Well, originally, yeah. I mean, not trouble. This is just this whole long thing that I’ve always had running. You’re not supposed to be an advocate….But otherwise why have a paper? That’s why you have the 1st Amendment. That’s why the press is free to print anything it wants.

EDSALL: So in effect you got in trouble for saying that the paper does advocate and should advocate?

PINCUS: Should advocate, yeah.

EDSALL: I mean — when I got into journalism a long time ago, I think the idea was for reporters to attempt, in breaking stories, to affect the [political and policy] agenda.

PINCUS: Yeah. I think this is generational. I mean, you may know better than I, but — and that’s why we all went into it.

In the comments, Lex Alexander of the News & Record in Greensboro lists some areas where daily newspapers might start to see itself as having a political identity:

• Public records. If you think of yourself as a public trustee and/or a watchdog, this is essential. It’s also a fairly easy sell to the public.

• Being pro-consumer. The market is more and more a rigged game these days, from dirty air to downed cattle.

• That watchdog thing. It’s hard and takes people and money, but when you identify a worthy target (be it an individual, a government agency, a corporation or a nonprofit) and hit it hard, people react.

“None of these involves picking a side in the red/blue culture wars,” Lex writes.

It’s always been of interest to me that most people think the available choices are toxic objectivity on the one hand or picking a side and joining the culture wars on the other. Absurdly de-politicized or instantly over-politicized: where do you stand?

Matthew Sheffield of Newsbusters.org (“Exposing and combatting liberal media bias”) in the comments:

I still think there is value in the desire to be unaligned (no one likes being thought a shill) and a danger in thoroughly throwing one’s lot in with a side (spiking stories “for the team”).

Steve Borris at the Future of News reacts to this post:

If neutrality isn’t necessarily desirable, is it possible “fairness” isn’t either? In my view, a partisan news outlet can demonstrate “fairness” in two ways — by admitting their biases to readers and by providing an honest presentation of opposing views. But in debates, which we consider to be fair contests, would we expect either side to admit their biases or give an honest presentation of the other’s views? Of course, it would not be good for either side to tell lies, but that involves a concept called “honesty,” not fairness. So bring it on, and let’s hear from a multitude of partisan news sources competing in a freewheeling marketplace of ideas. As the saying goes, “politics ain’t bean bag.” Nor is citizenship. Nor should be news.

Karl at Protein wisdom: “Urging journalists to admit that they are participants in the public square is a healthy notion.”

James Joyner at Outside the Beltway:

Even under the current Illusion of Objectivity model, the reporting is fair most of the time. I have my clock radio wake me to NPR every morning even though they’ve clearly got a progressive social agenda on a handful of issues. Even the dreaded NYT produces superb reportage on a day in, day out basis with only the occasional lulu thrown in.But, ultimately, Rosen’s ideal type is better than the current one. The thing that makes the best bloggers better than the best reporters is that the former operate in a low trust environment while the latter operate under the mantle of automatic respectability. That forces the blogs to lay out the facts, link to sources, and anticipate the responses of those who will disagree. Terrific reporters for major outlets, by contrast, often trip up because they begin from the premise “Trust me, I work for ___________.”

Posted by Jay Rosen at March 14, 2008 10:36 AM

roy greenslade on china and tibet coverage

China launches attack on Tibet coverage

March 25, 2008 7:57 AM

China has sharply criticised foreign reporters over coverage of the riots in Tibet, accusing them of biased reporting. The front page of the weekend edition of China Daily, the English-language newspaper, said: “Riot reports show media bas in west.” Its website carried a report headlined Chinese experts condemn biased reports on Lhasa riot by western media.Meanwhile, the official Xinhua news agency released a report over the weekend suggesting that footage shown by CNN misrepresented the situation. A further report is headlined Foreigners in Tibet: Western media reports not conform with facts.

Though the government has been blocking foreign websites inside China and censoring foreign television broadcasts it has allowed Chinese sites, which are usually heavily censored for political content, to post attacks on foreign media coverage of Tibet.

Foreign journalists have been denied access to Tibet and are blocked from reaching neighbouring regions with large Tibetan populations. “At a time when China is promising to become more open with the world, this is a big disappointment,” said Jocelyn Ford, a freelance journalist in Beijing and chair of the media freedoms committee of the Foreign Correspondents Club.

To appease foreign reporters, Beijing told several journalists yesterday that a group of about 12 journalists would be able to travel to Lhasa for a special, government-guided tour of the city later this week. Whether they will be allowed to interview people independently is unclear. (Via International Herald Tribune)

Interesting documentary on Iraq and how America can f**k up a whole nation.

 

http://iraq.reuters.com/

Soccer Stewards.(For WSC/ Observer)

Journalism Portfolio 2 (proposed article for WSC/ Observer Sport Monthly.)

Observer Sport Monthly/WSC:

  

Editor: Andy Lyons

Address:

17a Perseverance Works

38 Kingsland Road

London

E2 8DD

Tel: 0207 729 1110

Email: editorial@wsc.co.uk

 “STEWARD’S SOCCER”

When I say the word football steward, an image that will instantaneously come up in your head would be of a gentleman in a high visibility-uniform shielding the fans from an overexcited footballer, who has just scored a goal. Football stewards or perhaps safety stewards, as my employers will have them named; are an integral and prominent presence at football grounds on a match day. Football fans across the country deal with them, whether they’re at home or away and on positive and negative terms. “Where’s east stand gate 7 mate?”, “That idiot is in my seat, what are you going to do about it?” “No I won’t sit down, my team’s just scored.” These are some of the terms of communication between fans and the proverbial steward.

Indeed most perceptions of a football steward are of an authoritarian figure, middle aged men who use their position of authority as a substitute for a failed attempt at becoming a police officer. Some of this may be true, while some of it may not, but what is an underlying fact is that football stewards have become increasingly important in the shaping of the clean image of the lucratively invested Sky Premiership. Hooliganism and the memory of Heysel, and Hillsborough remain (at least in football grounds and in the UK) as part of the barbarian nature of the atmosphere at stadiums, from a bygone era. In the Chelsea FC stewards training programme (CEMS) of which i have undertaken, one of the main basis of the training, was watching a video of the Bradford FC fire of 1985 where 56 people lost their lives. It is not comfortable viewing but it highlighted the ineptness and incompetence of the procedures of the stewards of that time; locking the exit doors before the fire, and the absence of high visibility garments meant that they became invisible in the pandemonium that ensued.

The steward’s job is obviously not all fun and games, but many people become stewards not as their main source of income but as a hobby; working for a football club that you have supported since a boy. The change is just a little pocket money for the kids and therefore is not enough to pay the mortgage. I on the other hand I am completely different. I do not support Chelsea, and this job is to help me get through my University studies. However I don’t mind working at Chelsea, the staff and the fans have always been pleasant to me in the odd years that I have worked there, but this article is not about that, it is about something different.

My employers Chelsea Stewards FC run a football team of which I am a part of. I have been with the team for around three years now, and in that time I have seen players and managers come and go, and I have seen the team progress and digress just as quickly. There is an annual tournament that we enter involving people who steward at football grounds across the country.  The football Stewards championship has been running since 1994 and it was established by a gentleman named Ray Dean, a senior steward at Liverpool FC. The competition is officially sponsored by the FA, the PFA and the Premier league and additional sponsors Nike and Toffs. The championship includes a group stage format, where the top two teams in each group progress to the knock out stage. The third placed team may play in the “shadow tournament”, a somewhat poor man’s equivalent of the UEFA Cup.

Over the years the location of each tournament has varied from Liverpool, to Newcastle, to Birmingham and London. Some finals have been played at established football venues such as Carrow Road (Norwich), Loftus road (QPR, London) and London Colney (Arsenal’s former training ground). The so called “big” football teams are Charlton Athletic (who have won it 4 times), Liverpool (three times winners and current holders) and Norwich City. Chelsea FC stewards rank near the bottom of the football steward team pedigree. We are not totally useless the truth is there has been a decent amount of talent in our squad, however what has been our problem is that there are many teams who are just physically better than us, and we are not that disciplined.

I remember in one of the first tournaments we were involved in, we were doubting whether some of the Charlton players were actually stewards, such was the size and physique of some of them. Most of them looked as if they were semi pro. We thus we kept hounding them to see their steward’s pass, just to be sure. The most disastrous tournament I was ever involved with was my first tournament where the hosts were West Bromwich Albion. I had travelled to Birmingham from Euston station a late addition to the squad with a team ate named Michael. It was around 9:30 in the evening and a three hour train ride. When we got to Birmingham we had to share a cab because it was still quite a way to our hotel. The rest of the team had already made their way by car. Michael and I had to share a hotel room. 

I was shattered and decided to call it a night. Michael on the other hand wanted to see what Birmingham had to offer in terms of nightlife. He along with the other team mates invited me to come, but I declined. Our goalkeeper, Richard had not come prepared with going out clothes, so it was left to Michael to help him out. Very soon I identified the roles in terms of character, that each of my team mates would attain. Michael was clearly identified as the joker of our team, and Richard was perceived as the whipping boy of the team. This was exemplified when the Bradford City team who were sharing the hotel with us, began to laugh at his clothes: “No man white socks! Ya can’t wear white socks with black shoes!”

Before Michael left with the rest of the boys, he asked me to join him in saying a prayer for our team to do well in the tournament, having queried why there was a bible in our room. We took the bible and said a prayer. I don’t think I am as religious as he is, and I felt a little bit uncomfortable but I obliged. I felt rude not to. However little did I know, that we would need these prayers for the tournament tomorrow.

Our first game was against Newcastle if I can recall, I can’t remember the score but I remember that we got walked off of the park. The obligatory team discussion came after the match. I say discussion but it was more arguing, shouting blaming each other and well brutal criticism. As the group stage transcended, we had ended up in third place, but not before a few internal and external controversies along the way.

In one match Peter a brilliant, passionate, yet volatile and short tempered defender received a second yellow card and subsequently got sent off for an innocuous challenge. He did not take the decision well, and started to throw things onto the pitch. A plastic bottle filled with Lucozade, and some loose change got hurled onto the pitch in anger. He then started a verbal assault on his team mates and then his manager. We were playing horrible yes but no one wants to hear that.  It did not help that the manager was also his sister, the issue here being that he was not picked for all of the games (which he probably should have been, if his temper did not get the best of him). I tried to calm him down but it took some doing. He did however later apologize to the team for his behaviour, which I admired him for.

Another game was more farcical than the last. It was between Everton and we were playing quite well but still were failing to score. A player by the name Santos had been rambling on how he was such a cultured and fantastic player. There is nothing wrong with this, for most players have this sense of bravado about their abilities, it comes part and parcel in any competitive sport. Santos was from Ghana and spoke in a strong West African accent and also spoke in third person. He was quite a character and was very opinionated. He had claimed that he played ‘top’ football in Ghana, and therefore we should all listen and pass the ball to him. He called us all “amateurs”, and you could not really argue with him in this respect.

He described his style as similar to Claude Makalele, but able to dictate the play. I would say from his description that he played like former Barca player Josep Guardiola. However he played like neither. The only similarities between him and Makalele were that both are small in height. Anyway there was an incident that would go down involving Santos that would see him ostracized from the team and ensure we were the laughing stock of the whole tournamnent.

806 wrds

Ask to see steward’s passes.

Liverpool: chat up lines I’ m a reserve team player

about enjoyfootball

Welcome to the home of enjoyfootball, organisers of The Stewards Championships. The tournament is officially sanctioned by The Football Association and supported by The Premier League and Professional Footballers Association.

Ray Dean
Founder of The Stewards Championships, Ray has dedicated the last nine years to the event and through his enthusiasm has made the tournament what it is today.

Andrew Dean
Having spent the past nine years in sponsorship and event management, Andrew brings his skills to enjoyfootball, committed to developing the future of the tournament

history of the stewards championships
The Stewards Football Championships have been an annual event since 1994. It was inaugurate at Anfield by founder Ray Dean, a senior steward at Liverpool F.C. The encouragement Ray received from the clubs former Chief Executive Mr Peter Robinson was instrumental in him pursuing the dream of an annual festival of football for the stewards of Premiership and Football League clubs. The inaugural winners were Norwich City who went on to dominate the event for a few seasons. There were only eight teams competing in 1994 compared to the twenty clubs due to gather
in 2003.

In 1995 Carrow Road, Norwich, was the venue for the final, and yes the hosts were triumphant once again. The lads from East Anglia were proving difficult to beat and would not relinquish their crown easily.

The tournament hosted by the Blackburn Rovers stewards in 1996 saw the emergence of a resilient Queens Park Rangers side that prevented the Canaries’ completing a Hat-Trick of victories.

Our hosts for 1997 were Q.P.R. at their Loftus Road Ground. The final this season was contested by Liverpool and the eventual winners Norwich City, back to their best.

To Newcastle for our 1998 contest which attracted our first sponsor in Thistle Hotels. This season we had attracted twelve clubs, but a repeat of our 1996 final saw the Norwich City stewards clinch a fourth win by outclassing Q.P.R.

Arsenal stewards under the expert guidance of Jim Miller had managed to secure the clubs training facility at London Colney in 1999. The event was filmed for the first time by Sky Sports and the final lived up to all expectations. A classic contest was eventually won by the Liverpool stewards, coached by Mick Wright.

For the Millennium the hosts were Leeds United. Our numbers had increased to sixteen clubs including the first European club, Feyenoord of Rotterdam. The ultimate winners were Southampton led by Steve Harris in only their second tournament defeating newcomers Aston Villa.

Aston Villa stewards, led by John Heath offered the facilities at Bodymoor Heath the Villa training H.Q. for the 2001 tournament. We were able to have our first high profile draw when John Gregory and Gerard Houllier officiated at Villa Park. It became apparent in the early stages of the event that Southampton would be odds on to retain the new trophy supplied by Thistle Hotels. They were extremely popular winners and also had in their ranks the Outstanding Player of the tournament who was the first recipient of this award now sponsored by the Professional Footballers Association.

The tournament returned to its original venue in 2002 when the Liverpool F.C. Academy was made available to us. The Sky Sports commentary team officiated at the draw which was made at Anfield. All the matches were closely fought and a debutant club Charlton Athletic triumphed over an unlucky Blackburn Rovers team.

In 2003 the Championship returned to Newcastle with the backing of The FA and FA Premier League. The tournament draw took place in January 2003 with Sir Bobby Robson and Gerard Houllier. Charlton Athletic once again took the title in a repeat of the 2002 final against Blackburn Rovers. The Championships also saw the introduction of Nike and Carlsberg as Official Partners.

2004 returned to Arsenal and their former Training Facilities at London Colney. The draw had been made earlier that month by Richard Scudamore, Chief Executive of The FA Premier League. In what was probably the most competitive tournament to date Charlton Athletic made it a hat-trick of victories beating the tournament’s surprise package Ipswich Town.

In 2004 enjoyfootball also organised its first international trip with a England Select Stewards Goodwill Tour to Euro 2004 in Portugal. The Tour was met with great enthusiasm from The FA and the Portuguese and enjoyfootball hope to build on this for the World Cup in 2006.

2005 saw the tournament return to Birmingham with hosts West Bromwich Albion. The draw had been made earlier that season by life long Baggies fan, comedian, Frank Skinner. Charlton Athletic were again victorious equalling the record of four wins by Norwich City beating Blackburn Rovers in another tough final.

This event is not only the culmination of ten years hard work, but a tribute to all who have competed, supported, officiated and hosted this tournament for a decade. Our thanks to you all.

Let us look forward to many more tournaments in sportsmanship and friendship.

http://www.enjoyfootball.com/

4 Wall (Zappata’s Art projects):

 4 Wall web 

CONTACT:

4WALL is keen to hear from anyone who has an interest in buying, commissioning, exhibiting, or submitting work. Whatever questions you have, please do not hesitate to ask. We promise to get back to you personally and promptly.

Please contact:
claire@4wall.co.uk 
07789 888876

 4 Wall deals with contemporary artists and illustrators. They have offices in Bermondsey, Farringdon and Selfridges. They commission Art Work and do album covers etc…
 

More “Little White Lies” information.

 The CNET TV feature of “Little White Lies” magazine

Danny Miller and Matthew Bonchenski conceived “Little White Lies” when they were 17 years old.

Little white lies contacts

Editor: matt@littlewhitelies.co.uk

danny@littlewhitelies.co.uk

The Church of London Publishing Ltd. Studio 209, Curtain House, 134-146 Curtain Road, London, EC2A 3AR (map). Tel: +44 (0) 207 7293675.

The Guardian’s review of alternative film magazines.

Why the British film

industry is

constitutionally flawed

Toby Manhire
Wednesday July 20, 2005
The Guardian

Just as independent and arthouse cinema can offer a refreshing alternative to the studio blockbusters, there is a strain of film magazines that stands outside the mainstream of the commercially minded gloss.Sight & Sound, published by the British Film Institute, has for more than seven decades worked to prise cinema from the grip of Mammon. In the August issue, the columnist Nick Roddick bemoaned the state of the British film industry. One of the many depressing auguries, he reckoned, was the failure of the EU constitution.”There will be little place in Gordon Brown’s ‘realistic Europeanism’ for the cultural exception that was enshrined in the rejected constitution – the French model whereby film is protected from the market forces that determine the development of other industries,” he said. “There is thus little chance that any new direction in UK film policy will embrace the cultural imperative at the expense of the sustainable, priming-the-economic-pump model that has dominated government thinking for two decades. Unless those who believe in film as an artform alongside film as an industry get a lot better organised.”Across the Atlantic, Cineaste (Summer) was in cheerier mood, hailing a resurgent genre in American cinema: the political documentary. Most prominent was the provocateur Michael Moore’s Farenheit 9/11, but in recent years “an unusually large number of feature-length documentaries have also received theatrical releases”. That success, it said in an editorial, had “forced traditional film distributors to rethink the conventional film industry prejudice against documentaries”. The future of the form had “never seemed brighter”, and Cineaste hoped “such films will continue to provide information and perspectives that will stimulate the debate, and even dissent, vital to the health of American democracy”.

Where Sight & Sound and Cineaste eschew any form of star-ratings in film reviews, new-kid-on-the-block Little White Lies (Issue 2) has conjured up a tripartite ranking system. “There are many different aspects of the movie-going experience and we will embrace them all,” trumpeted the London-based magazine. Anticipation “plays a crucial role in your reaction … It should be measured and acknowledged as part of the movie-going experience.” Next, Enjoyment: “How did you feel for those two hours?” Finally, Retrospect: “Great movies live with you … Did this movie fade away or was every moment burned into your retina?”

According to these categories, Kingdom of Heaven registered 4,2,2; The Revenge of the Sith scored 5,4,3; and Dig! got 3,4,4. The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse was awarded 5,3,4 by one reviewer and 4,3,3 by the other – they critiqued the film in conversation “around midnight”.

FilmWaves (issue 27) does not bother with reviews of new releases at all. This is certainly not a read for the casual multiplex-goer: contents include part six of a history of film magazines and the invitingly headlined article “The dense clarity of didactic counterpoint”. For the committed film student, however, there are riches, with news for film-makers and profiles of emerging talent.

The industry itself is also put under the microscope. With women amounting to just 7% of film directors, Sara Quin asked Rachel Millward, who runs the Birds Eye View festival, why it was harder for women to succeed in the industry. There was “the confidence factor”, said Millward, and there was the hurdle for many women of “trying to juggle career and bringing up their children”. One more thing: “There is not equality and there’s a hell of a lot of sexism out there.” But the brandishing of feminism as a weapon against that was problematic: “If you speak in that language you alienate so many women. It’s become sort of negative.”

Little white lies: movie magazine

from The Guardian 

 Publishing
A film magazine less ordinary
“If you line up most film magazines side by side you’ll see that, really, they’re basically the same magazine – same covers, same features, even the same marks for each film review,” says Danny Miller, editor of Little White Lies – a new, underground film quarterly. “When I was growing up, I loved magazines so much I’d collect them. The only thing I loved more than magazines was film. Gradually, because film magazines were so boring, I stopped buying magazines altogether.”

Miller’s answer to the problem of repetitive publishing came to him eight years ago. He conceived Little White Lies with his schoolfriend Matthew Bochenski when aged 17 and they carried the dream with them through university and into their first jobs at skate and snowboard magazine Adrenalin. When the independent publishers behind Adrenalin collapsed last November, he put together the first issue of Little White Lies with Bochenski and various friends writing about film “in the same way you talk about it in the pub”.

“If you’re talking about a film you don’t endlessly discuss camera angles or try to imagine what it would have been like visiting the set,” he argues. “You use the film as a springboard to talk about all sorts of stuff. That’s our philosophy. Each issue of Little White Lies is themed on a film, but then our writers are at liberty to come up with stuff on whatever the film inspires in them.”

Thus, the third issue takes George A Romero’s Land Of The Dead as a theme to riff on rock stars who should be dead and voodoo practitioners in London, while the next issue – on King Kong – runs features on great fights in nature and the Donkey Kong videogame.

Since launching the magazine, Miller has has got his old job at Adrenalin back after a new publisher was found for the title. He’s kept going with Lies, however, and is developing the kind of solid, paid-for business plan that recent launches such as Stool Pigeon and Good For Nothing have proclaimed impossible. Little White Lies is sold in Borders, Virgin and Fopp stores as well as independent clothing and music stores. With a cover price of £2.75, it is currently shifting a modest 10,000 copies, but that accounts for almost 80% of the print run.

“Obviously we don’t expect the likes of Empire and Total Film to have even heard of us,” Miller admits, “They sell 200,000, we sell less than a tenth of that. But we don’t have their tired formula, we don’t cull our news section from the internet and we don’t just choose the same films as everyone else to run with. That’s all we want to do – provide somewhere for people who are really passionate about film to go.”
Stephen Armstrong