OPERATION NULL AND VOID is well underway. Scott Brown dismissed the sustained questioning on it today at his Media Conference as the Champions Elect began the build-up to the big Glasgow Derby on Sunday.
You can watch this Media Conference below where you will hear the determined agenda-driven questioning. Thankfully it was the captain they were speaking to and not a younger player, who perhaps would have fallen into the trap and given a legitimacy to this pathetic attempt to stop 9IAR off the park because they all accept that a certain team isn’t going to stop it on the park.
Here’s the thing. ‘The People’ invited to these Media Conferences are predominantly from the mainstream media – the newspapers, the radio stations and usually BBC Scotland, Scottish Television and Sky Sports. From the Celtic fans media which has grown dramatically over the past decade or so, only the team from 90-Minute Cynics are regulars, and tend to ask sensible questions usually to Neil Lennon about tactical decisions and such like. There is no agenda with these guys, only the love of football in general and Celtic in particular. Their content though is behind a payment wall so is pretty much restricted to paying customers only (it’s well worth the money btw).
The day is here…
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— 90 Minute Cynic (@90MinuteCynic) May 2, 2019
This week Daily Record got wind of the season ticket launch before the fan-media or anyone else. That must have come from Celtic. The support noticed this and many were irritated by it.
A number of years ago when the internet became an accepted place where football supporters would gather to communicate about all things relating to their team, Peter Lawwell put together a small group of bloggers and podcasters of the time and provided them with media access. A few of them are still there or thereabouts in the fans media, none appear to be that prominent and maybe the odd one is a tarnished by confusing friendship to Celtic’s boardroom with loyalty to Celtic Football Club.
That is a trap that NONE of the current crop of leading Celtic sites would wish to fall into. One day this week over 100,000 people read The Celtic Star, most days it is over 60,000 these days – astonishing numbers but we are not alone. Sites like Celts Are Here, Video Celts and The Celtic Blog are all popular and all have Celtic in their hearts.
There are a host of fake Celtic sites – not necessarily Celtic fans but these click-bait media companies trying to muscle in on the green pound through click-bait advertising. And whatever you say about them they are successful, one is even married to the Rangers News, which always reminds me of this photograph. It’s touching that they even do an ‘Old Firm’ podcast together.
When Channel 4 launched their own agenda driven attack on Celtic it was The Celtic Star who stood up for the club and were given answers from the club that Alex Thomson was not. Celtic appreciated the fan-media journalism on this most difficult subject to write about.
The Celtic bashing was in full flow on that one and the Celtic sites, entirely understandably, were by and large silent. We took Thomson to task on his errors, such as claiming that the old Pools office was used by Celtic Boys Club, we produced a witness to counter the nonsensical claims made by anonymous witness whose words were spoken by an actor – our witness rubbished the claim that Celtic had any link whatsoever to ‘doors opening’ in England for the touring boys club in the 1970s.
And we spoke to Rangers fan Malcolm Rodger who disagrees with child abuse being weaponised by rival supporters merely to damage Celtic. He pointed out that ALL the abuse in Scottish football took place under the remit of the Scottish FA and that NONE of it took place after anyone had signed a professional contract with a senior Scottish club.
Those were not The Celtic Star’s opinions, they are the views of Malcolm, a Rangers man and a poster on their biggest fans forum Follow Follow. When we promoted his views again on Sunday evening – Malcolm also exposed how badly served the victims of abuse at Celtic Boys Club are by their no-win-no-fee solicitors who despite all the bluster and the extensive briefing of the Channel 4 Chief Correspondent, they have actually done nothing to take this matter to court.
Celtic Supporters put their hands in their pockets to help Malcolm towards his £20,000 target and within a few days of launching he had gone beyond the £5k mark. The money will be used to crowd fund a case against the Scottish FA and will be open to all victims to join including of course the victims of child abuse at Rangers – the ones that were told by the current club to contact the old club’s liquidators regarding compensation. Incidentally you can donate on Malcolm’s Just Giving page to help him achieve justice for ALL the survivors of child abuse in Scottish football HERE.
After the Glasgow Derby on 29 December 2019 Peter Smith from ITN claimed that he had seen a video that featured Celtic Supporters racially abusing Alfredo Morelos, but he didn’t want to share it. The Celtic Star investigated that claim and got you the story about what had actually happened. Smith was clearly mistaken, misled or worse, but he was wrong. He didn’t respond when we continually challenged him to show the video – which incidentally did not show anything of the kind.
Anyway how about this as an idea? Celtic should reflect on all of the above and consider updating their own understanding of the media and how it looks in 2020, not 2004 or 1974 It’s not all about the printed media, their sales are declining dramatically to such an extent that papers like Sunday Mail and Daily Record are selling around 10% of the number of copies that they were selling the first time Celtic won 9-in-a-row – yet Celtic treat them in the same way now as they did back then. Why?
If the purpose of the media from Celtic’s point of view is to reach and communicate with the Celtic Support then the reality is these papers do not cut the mustard in the way that they once did. And there is a valid alternative, one that could be relied upon to provide altogether more pro-Celtic questions to the likes of Scott Brown.
Listen to the hacks’ questions to the Celtic captain below courtesy of Celtic’s You Tube channel. These hacks are setting the agenda – today it was Operation Null and Void to Stop nine-in-a-row. But if Celtic reduced the places to these guys and in their place invited half a dozen of the Celtic fans sites along then Scott Brown would have received an entirely different set of questions and if you think about it the fans media would have asked questions that the support would like to hear Scott Brown speaking about.
These Media Conferences would be much more enjoyable. The dynamic would be completely different and the hacks would be the ones having to be very careful at what they say and the agenda that they try to push. Imagine James Forrest – the blogger – jumping in after that hack tried to declare the title race as null and void and was allowed to pursue it with follow-up questions!
It’s just a thought. The new generation of Celtic fans media has seen the mistakes of the past and have no wish to get too close to anyone at the club but all would do a great job asking the kind of questions that Celtic fans – who all love our club – would want to hear asked and answered. Maybe the guys getting interviewed would enjoy it a little bit more too?
If the club are interested John Paul Taylor has all the contact details on the various Celtic sites. I’d be happy to provide him with stats on the numbers each one is achieving and for comparison the audience stats for the various media outlets that are invited to Celtic Media conferences. Combined the Celtic fans media is much bigger than the hacks media with their anti-Celtic agendas.
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