12 replies to this topic

[unicorn106]

Most people would agree that our victory at Oldham yesterday was probably the performance of the season....What a pity that Martin Morgan once again donned his haven cap and give them the back page headline for qualifying for the play offs with a magnificent win over high flying Gateshead. ( Did we not qualify also ??)

Incredibly Haven got about eight times more column inches than Town got. I know we should all expect this by now, but it's a bit of a sickner when we've just had our best result of the season.

I honestly think Morgan is a disgrace to journalism.

Rant over.

[Keith T]

I don't think you should be surprised. This weeks Town report is from John Walsh who is a freelance journalist whilst Morgan is a CN Group employee who seems to have the ear of the Sports Editor at Carlisle, so who would you think would get most prominence?

I complained last year about what I and others perceived to be bias against Town but it just went from the CN Group Managing Director to the Editor of the Times and Star who disagreed with my comments. Why it went to the T & S editor, goodness only knows as my comments were, in the main, about the N & S???

If the editors can't see the damage they do by giving one club more prominence over another then the only answer for the fans is - don't waste your money buying the paper!!!!!!

[dkw]

I stopped buying the paper years ago because of this exact thing. It really is disgraceful how biased they are.

[The Voodooguru]

Thanks for the background behind todays headline Tony.
Unfortunately in many Town fans eyes ( mine included) the way the N&S has reported rugby league in the area has been done so with bias towards Whitehaven.
So when the back page appeared like it did today I would say on balance most people who have noticed the bias would naturally assume that it was another example of this.
I am sure Mr Morgan will argue that although he is a Haven fan this does not colour his professional judgement. But there are many many people who read the N&S would strongly disagree.
This is maybe a hollow question as you have stated that you won't post again but can you say if it is easier to get stories from one club ? Or is it because he has good connections he can get news easier from haven?
Even if this is true there have been some laughable favouring but maybe it would explain a couple of instances.
At the end of the day it would take a huge amount of persuasion to make me believe that the reporting is balanced, so I just don't buy the paper and read it online then I haven't wasted my money!
The Voodooguru ( not my real name but then again H is a strange surname!)

[dkw]

so thats that one incident explained, its a shame you wont post again as it would have been nice to hear an explanation covering the past decade or so of this exact thing happening over and over and over.

[coppracill]

regarding newspaper coverage, todays daily mirror has a brilliant double page spread about cec thompson.

[unicorn106]

Gentlemen, Martin Morgan is not a disgrace to journalism, far from it.
Maybe I should explain the scenario this morning....
Helen Thompson covers Town and would normally have written a reaction piece even though Walshie covers 95% of the away games for us.
However, Helen was off, and I think Gary Charlton will back me up on this when I say that Martin eventually got hold of him at about 9.20am.
I designed the back page. My deadline, and if I didn't make it my head would role, is 9.40 prompt.
The piece on Town was with me at 9.35 giving me no time at all to redesign the page.
Therefore, Town went into a single column on the right of the page, and the button was pressed. We also had no action pictures from Oldham at that time.
Helen works from Sunday to Wednesday. Martin, on top of his huge workload, helps out with Town at the end of the week.
It's the situation we are in and won't be changing in the foreseeable future.
From unicorn106's assessment, he is obviously not aware of the quality of the other work Martin does, and obviously didn't see the excellent feature on young Ben Stokes that was published in the News & Star and The Cumberland News, as well as regularly covering many other sports.
A withdrawal of your statement might be in order.
I won't be posting on this thread again as I am not going to get into a slanging match.
Maybe, being aware of the full facts might be an idea in future before such ridiculous statements are made.
Tony H (my real name)

I certainly won't be withdrawing my statement, but maybe the word 'disgrace' was maybe a bit harsh. Martin Morgan as you say is probably a very good journalist and a nice guy as well, but I feel he sometimes uses the N&S as personal Haven fanzine, which I think is a bit unprofessional. Most of us on here don't know what goes on in trying to get back pages sorted, we just see the finished product, and that's what I commented on.
I don't want a slanging match either as we are just raking over old ground here. I certainly won't be posting again on this subject (honest ), as you say, nothings going to change.

[topladtownie]

Gentlemen, Martin Morgan is not a disgrace to journalism, far from it.

A withdrawal of your statement might be in order.

How patronising can you get.

In my opinion Morgan is a biased and poor reporter, Haven always get more
coverage and a better spin of things.

As for using your real name, that has not always been the case has it now?

Using a second login at one point during the Stokes era, still you can
always deny that one.

[bobg]

Gentlemen, Martin Morgan is not a disgrace to journalism, far from it.
Maybe I should explain the scenario this morning....
Helen Thompson covers Town and would normally have written a reaction piece even though Walshie covers 95% of the away games for us.
However, Helen was off, and I think Gary Charlton will back me up on this when I say that Martin eventually got hold of him at about 9.20am.
I designed the back page. My deadline, and if I didn't make it my head would role, is 9.40 prompt.
The piece on Town was with me at 9.35 giving me no time at all to redesign the page.
Therefore, Town went into a single column on the right of the page, and the button was pressed. We also had no action pictures from Oldham at that time.
Helen works from Sunday to Wednesday. Martin, on top of his huge workload, helps out with Town at the end of the week.
It's the situation we are in and won't be changing in the foreseeable future.
From unicorn106's assessment, he is obviously not aware of the quality of the other work Martin does, and obviously didn't see the excellent feature on young Ben Stokes that was published in the News & Star and The Cumberland News, as well as regularly covering many other sports.
A withdrawal of your statement might be in order.
I won't be posting on this thread again as I am not going to get into a slanging match.
Maybe, being aware of the full facts might be an idea in future before such ridiculous statements are made.
Tony H (my real name)

I don't wish to be drawn into this arguement, but I have a further example of this bias. A few weeks ago "Town" had a terrific win against Swinton when on the same day "Haven" went down at Oldham, I recall reading Mr Morgans comments and the first thing that stuck me was, John Patrick scored "Towns" first try, reported as Ex Haven player, however on the same day Andrew Beattie scored "Havens" first try but was not reported as ex Town player. I also stopped buying the N&S for this very reason of bias.

Bob g (Real name).

[town4me]

thanks for that explination TonyH but as dkw says wheres the explination for the last decade of this thing going on?? or would you care to explain on what bobg has said on the previous post to mine?????????????? no doubt there will be no reply.

[LA HORNET]

thanks for that explination TonyH but as dkw says wheres the explination for the last decade of this thing going on?? or would you care to explain on what bobg has said on the previous post to mine?????????????? no doubt there will be no reply.

Let’s be truthful it doesn’t matter what people say about or think about the lack of Town reports or coverage in the paper as nothing will happen, the news and star has no opposition paper to compete against have they ? in Lancashire Yorkshire and Humberside you will have three or four papers competing for the headlines and giving the different teams the best possible coverage to boost their own papers sales.

[Keith T]

During the 90's I used to write the bowls column for both the T & S and the Wh News, unpaid I may add. Because of the two different main towns covered I was asked by both editors to slant each article to provide interest towards their particular town. So if say Workington beat Whitehaven 9 - 0 I could say in the T & S that "Workington had thrashed Whitehaven quite easily" but in the Wh News for the same match it would say something like "although beaten 9 - 0 Whitehaven put up a great fight against Workington". The editors didn't want the same article for both papers.

I also recall that in years gone by the Whitehaven edition of the N & S had a different front and back page to Workington's just as Carlisle's seems to still be different to ours. So, there is no need for one club to be given more prominence over another it is solely down to the people in charge that this goes on. Likewise there is no need for petty comments against one club in preference to another, that is also down to people and hopefully someone at the CN Group realises this and does something about it. Until then let's move on.