Stockhausen Syndrome

[The Journalist]

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

There is part of me that wonders how much effort a journo has to put in the command a decent living.

I know for fact that if they are doing a story or even a match report, they are in effect writing it once and distributing to many agencies and being paid per Agency.  Sometimes they might have to tweak it here or there to fit the recipient...but the core effort isn't duplicated.  I believe AS works in that way too.....the joy of being freelance too.

Being a successful football journalist - especially freelance - is actually incredibly difficult simply because of the competitiveness of the field.

If you're at the very top of the profession being freelance works because you're likely well connected and most certainly in demand - but we really are talking the very top 1% or so here.

For many, and I speak from previous experience myself, going freelance is nothing more than a stressful, uncertain and insecure necessity to earn a contract somewhere. Believe me, it's far from glamorous and far from easy street.

[Esmond Million's Bung]

19 minutes ago, BCFC_Dan said:

It's not a tough job and maybe he's not the best in the business but I don't see why some people feel the need to snipe at him constantly. His stuff is available for free on the website so it's not like they're even paying to read it. It's information and it's slightly more credible than most of the speculation out there. Read it or don't read it and leave it at that.

If you want to read a better journalist then nobody's stopping you. If better journalists aren't covering Bristol City then that's not Andy Stockhausen's fault. He works for a backwater paper in a backwater town covering a lower league football team. Fix that and the coverage might improve.

Because it's what he does professionally for a living and as you pointed out he's not very good, driving a bus is a tough job but an inept driver would not last very long.

[BCFC_Dan]

4 minutes ago, Esmond Million's Bung said:

Because it's what he does professionally for a living and as you pointed out he's not very good, driving a bus is a tough job but an inept driver would not last very long.

If the bus driver is inept because he crashes the bus then he's putting lives at risk and would be removed for that reason. As far as I know, poor journalism never killed anybody directly.

If the bus driver is inept because he gets lost or can't keep to time then passengers will stop using the bus and the bus company will go out of business if it doesn't remove him. I'd imagine that the Post would remove Andy Stockhausen if it thought it would go out of business otherwise. So if you want that to happen, don't read the Post.

What you're defending is the equivalent of getting the bus every day, whether you need to or not, then standing next to the driver and telling him constantly that he's gone the wrong way. Try that next time you're on a bus and let me know how it goes.

 

[RaspberryRed]

7 minutes ago, BCFC_Dan said:

I presume you're also the sort of person who will boo Luke Freeman because he has the audacity to not be as good as Lionel Messi?

If you want better journalism then there is nothing at all stopping you from making it happen. Set up a paper or a website. Hire good journalists with good contacts. Charge for access and / or run adverts. If it's good enough you'll make a profit.

Alternatively, just continue reading the free content provided by the Post and criticising it, moaning that you deserve better because someone else does.

So just because something's free it's above criticism?

The article comes across Bitter, Twisted and Whiney IMO

[shelts]

Good article very honest and not surprised about how Cotts behaved towards him

[Esmond Million's Bung]

3 minutes ago, BCFC_Dan said:

If the bus driver is inept because he crashes the bus then he's putting lives at risk and would be removed for that reason. As far as I know, poor journalism never killed anybody directly.

If the bus driver is inept because he gets lost or can't keep to time then passengers will stop using the bus and the bus company will go out of business if it doesn't remove him. I'd imagine that the Post would remove Andy Stockhausen if it thought it would go out of business otherwise. So if you want that to happen, don't read the Post.

What you're defending is the equivalent of getting the bus every day, whether you need to or not, then standing next to the driver and telling him constantly that he's gone the wrong way. Try that next time you're on a bus and let me know how it goes.

 

No what I am defending is a 'professional' carrying out his 'professional' duty and IMO because of his relationship with the club, probably because of the tone of several of his articles about BCFC, he doesn't appear to have a very good relationship with them at all and that should be the cornerstone of any 'local' sports reporter who is the main correspondent for that club, what was the last truly 'exclusive' story he wrote about BCFC, one that wasn't already common knowledge?, he needs to be trusted by the club that he is a correspondent of.

 

[BCFC_Dan]

2 minutes ago, Esmond Million's Bung said:

No what I am defending is a 'professional' carrying out his 'professional' duty and IMO because of his relationship with the club, probably because of the tone of several of his articles about BCFC, he doesn't appear to have a very good relationship with them at all and that should be the cornerstone of any 'local' sports reporter who is the main correspondent for that club, what was the last truly 'exclusive' story he wrote about BCFC, one that wasn't already common knowledge?, he needs to be trusted by the club that he is a correspondent of.

 

Well if he's not trusted then he won't get the stories. If he doesn't get the stories then people won't buy the paper. If people don't buy the paper then he'll be made redundant.

The problem you have is that enough people buy the Post for other reasons to keep it going despite carrying one poor journalist (in your opinion). There's nothing you as an individual can do about that and that's exactly the way it should be.

You want better? Make better.

[Robin1988]

Short of being a relative or close friend I don't understand why you take such a child-like stance on this @BCFC_Dan especially since that's what you're apparently rallying against.

People are allowed to think he doesn't serve the club particularly well if they like. Moreover they're free to say so. The fact we might not have the time, expertise or desire to set up a rival to 'do it better' doesn't make our opinions any less valid. 

I hope you've never complained about anything you've not attempted professionally yourself.

[Port Said Red]

50 minutes ago, Aizoon said:

I love that thread title

ahem ........

 

[Esmond Million's Bung]

2 minutes ago, BCFC_Dan said:

Well if he's not trusted then he won't get the stories. If he doesn't get the stories then people won't buy the paper. If people don't buy the paper then he'll be made redundant.

The problem you have is that enough people buy the Post for other reasons to keep it going despite carrying one poor journalist (in your opinion). There's nothing you as an individual can do about that and that's exactly the way it should be.

You want better? Make better.

I can hold an opinion, that's my unalienable right.

The last sentence is just puerile, I have my opinion you have yours.

What I will concede is that there appears to be a sort of building of bridges between LJ and himself, I suppose now it's down to a matter of trust and maybe the elusive exclusives might follow, I wait with baited breath, but I suspect he maybe has realised that as it's local correspondent he needs BCFC more they need him.

 

[Silvio Dante]

I think, as said initially, it's a good piece and does shed light on current/past relationship with the club.

Is AS a bad journo? Probably not. However, what is bad is the "fluff" pieces on the BEP website (reporting "banter" tweets as news ffs) which are done to drive ad click bait. What is also bad is that AS has clearly in the past p'd off people at the club to the point where he had no internal sources and has to rely on Twitter rumours/otib. I also think that reporting wades departure before the OS wasn't clever.

I do sympathise with the guy as getting exclusives must be more difficult now than ever but think he is in part paying the price for prior negativity. Whether that passes with time, who can say...

[BCFC_Dan]

8 minutes ago, Robin1988 said:

Short of being a relative or close friend I don't understand why you take such a child-like stance on this @BCFC_Dan especially since that's what you're apparently rallying against.

People are allowed to think he doesn't serve the club particularly well if they like. Moreover they're free to say so. The fact we might not have the time, expertise or desire to set up a rival to 'do it better' doesn't make our opinions any less valid. 

I hope you've never complained about anything you've not attempted professionally yourself.

I'm not sure it's me who's being child-like here. I have no issue with anybody voicing their opinion and I never have done.

All I ever said was that some people seem to take great delight in finding examples of where he's been wrong and pointing them out. They look for the flaws in every single piece, and they act like they're entitled to only read journalism of the highest quality on a website that they haven't even paid a penny for.

By all means complain about the quality of your free content but I'm not sure what you hope to achieve by it.

4 minutes ago, Esmond Million's Bung said:

I can hold an opinion, that's my unalienable right.

The last sentence is just puerile, I have my opinion you have yours.

What I will concede is that there appears to be a sort of building of bridges between LJ and himself, I suppose now it's down to a matter of trust and maybe the elusive exclusives might follow, I wait with baited breath, but I suspect he maybe has realised that as it's local correspondent he needs BCFC more they need him.

 

Of course you can hold an opinion. You can also voice it. Who knows, maybe somebody from the Post is reading and will do something about it. I wouldn't hold your breath though.

[Robin1988]

2 minutes ago, BCFC_Dan said:

I'm not sure it's me who's being child-like here. I have no issue with anybody voicing their opinion and I never have done.

All I ever said was that some people seem to take great delight in finding examples of where he's been wrong and pointing them out. They look for the flaws in every single piece, and they act like they're entitled to only read journalism of the highest quality on a website that they haven't even paid a penny for.

By all means complain about the quality of your free content but I'm not sure what you hope to achieve by it.

Well if that's your issue fair enough, but you're taking it to a ridiculous degree by challenging anyone who brings up what is a questionable at best record. The fact it's free isn't really here nor there, and given the advertising revenues of the Bristol Post website go towards his wages it's not like he gets nothing from it.

[Red Army 87]

I bet the club told him to write that one.

[deadredfred]

The issue is he still has to write something about us on a daily basis, whether there is news or not. That can't be easy. 

It ends up like Points West where the news becomes a story about someone raising £6.40 for charity and insist on commenting and talking utter shite for a few seconds after every 'story' to fill the time.

Internet and social media renders newspapers useles. I can't see them lasting another decade because the clamour for instant information is already there, which AS alludes to. Why wait to hear about what he read on Twitter when we can do it ourselves?

 

[Esmond Million's Bung]

14 minutes ago, BCFC_Dan said:

Of course you can hold an opinion. You can also voice it. Who knows, maybe somebody from the Post is reading and will do something about it. I wouldn't hold your breath though.

Here's the thing, as I said there appears to be a modicum of bridge building with the club for whom he is the local correspondent of, how about an olive branch for the fans? instead of the barbed comment?.

[Major Isewater]

50 minutes ago, The Journalist said:

Being a successful football journalist - especially freelance - is actually incredibly difficult simply because of the competitiveness of the field.

If you're at the very top of the profession being freelance works because you're likely well connected and most certainly in demand - but we really are talking the very top 1% or so here.

For many, and I speak from previous experience myself, going freelance is nothing more than a stressful, uncertain and insecure necessity to earn a contract somewhere. Believe me, it's far from glamorous and far from easy street.

Ok , it's a tough job , many of us have tough jobs but my biggest criticism of AS is his lack of attention to detail which throws the credibility of his articles in to doubt .

 

[Unan]

Understand it must be hard to write about us day in day out but wrong information, bad grammar, simple mistakes? As said already, he has nothing to write about, he's hardly rushed off his feet..

[The Journalist]

7 minutes ago, Major Isewater said:

Ok , it's a tough job , many of us have tough jobs but my biggest criticism of AS is his lack of attention to detail which throws the credibility of his articles in to doubt .

 

That's fine, and I wouldn't disagree with that. I wasn't arguing for or against Stockhausen, or commenting on yours or anyone else's criticisms, I was just replying to @Davefevs!

[Red-Robbo]

25 minutes ago, Major Isewater said:

Ok , it's a tough job , many of us have tough jobs but my biggest criticism of AS is his lack of attention to detail which throws the credibility of his articles in to doubt .

 

Some may be the fault of the insane subbing process adopted by Trinity Mirror. Their subbing hub seems to routinely mis-caption pictures or just use the wrong ones.

FWIW I don't think AS does too bad a job. Relationships between the club and the Post have not been particularly close since the Peter Godsiff days finished. This is partly the fault of the club, and partly the fault of the Post. Having a Gasheads sport editor didn't help!

All of this can't help Stockhausen much, although he did lose credibility in my eyes after he fell for O'Driscoll's bullshit.

[BCFC_Dan]

24 minutes ago, Esmond Million's Bung said:

Here's the thing, as I said there appears to be a modicum of bridge building with the club for whom he is the local correspondent of, how about an olive branch for the fans? instead of the barbed comment?.

Fair enough. He does seem to snipe back a bit but I guess he's getting exposed to more criticism than he used to in pre-social media days.

Personally I felt he made a notable effort to improve the quality of his coverage a couple of years back. Some of it's still garbage, especially the modern internet-style lists of "5 things we learned" but I just skip those.

[Davefevs]

1 hour ago, The Journalist said:

Being a successful football journalist - especially freelance - is actually incredibly difficult simply because of the competitiveness of the field.

If you're at the very top of the profession being freelance works because you're likely well connected and most certainly in demand - but we really are talking the very top 1% or so here.

For many, and I speak from previous experience myself, going freelance is nothing more than a stressful, uncertain and insecure necessity to earn a contract somewhere. Believe me, it's far from glamorous and far from easy street.

Can't argue with any of that.  

I don't mind AS, he's only trying to do his job.  I'll take the mickey out of anyone.  I think he sets himself up as being ITK, but I think his blog proves that he will have sources, they aren't inside the club.  At least he communicates with the fans.  That's fine, and I guess he's trying to get clicks on his website.

[The Journalist]

3 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Can't argue with any of that.  

I don't mind AS, he's only trying to do his job.  I'll take the mickey out of anyone.  I think he sets himself up as being ITK, but I think his blog proves that he will have sources, they aren't inside the club.  At least he communicates with the fans.  That's fine, and I guess he's trying to get clicks on his website.

And, to his credit, he does use social media pretty well to connect with fans, which is more than can be said for many other old-school local journalists.

In fact, the number who don't understand platforms like Twitter, given their importance to the industry, is just plain scary.

[Ian M]

As our forum's own Journalist has noted, he uses Twitter well and I think it's interesting to those of our fan base who don't understand platforms such as Twitter that he reports on (for example) Tomlin's interactions on there.

But Andy, when you read this thread, and we know that you will, how about a thank you to the Mods and Admins on here for putting all the transfer rumours into one easy to follow section for you? Surely this makes your life a little easier?  

[PHILINFRANCE]

I read AS's articles quite regularly and suppose this demonstrates they are of interest (to me), although, as journalism is not my profession, I am unable to judge as to whether they are high quality - the proof, as they say however, is in the pudding, and I suggest that they must be of at least a reasonable quality otherwise I would not read them!

I also find AS's matchday tweets helpful and informative, so I guess my overall view is positive.

One incident/article, however, annoyed me immensely, and this dates back to the pre-season tour to Botswana two seasons ago when he stated categorically (as if he was present) that City's players walked off the pitch following the infamous tackle on Karley Osborne. This was patently false, and was later demonstrated to be so, thus leaving me doubting his credibility for months after, even to this day. 

[Alessandro]

Is it a tough job, yes.

Is AS the only journo who gets some transfer rumours wrong, no.

But with any job in the 'public eye' you will come under extra scrutiny and criticism. Unfortunately he seems to have fallen into the trap that many do on Twitter, and that is the wish to be liked or respected. It's just not going to happen. 

This blog is AS showing he is far too sensitive to what people write on social media platforms. 

Andy, it comes with the territory, it's not personal. Thicken up that skin a little. 

P.S If you're going to tweet about going's on at BCFC or games as if you're there in person, make sure your location settings don't show you at the other end of the country. 

[Leveller]

5 hours ago, Robin1988 said:

Short of being a relative or close friend I don't understand why you take such a child-like stance on this @BCFC_Dan especially since that's what you're apparently rallying against.

People are allowed to think he doesn't serve the club particularly well if they like. Moreover they're free to say so. The fact we might not have the time, expertise or desire to set up a rival to 'do it better' doesn't make our opinions any less valid. 

I hope you've never complained about anything you've not attempted professionally yourself.

Why do you think he's there to serve the club? He's there to serve the readers and should try to be independent of the club, not be hand in glove with it.

[Leveller]

I disagree with Silvio - I'd rather a journalist tried to keep a modicum of distance and objectivity, and if that involves annoying the rather childish Cotterill, so be it.

Lee Johnson is slightly more intelligent and grown up & will probably have a better relationship with journalists, recognising their viewpoint. Good.

 

[exAtyeoMax]

8 hours ago, Woodsy said:

The biggest thing from this for me, O'Neill went #fullkitwanker for his photo shoot

I like him even more now

aren't our shorts red?

[Son of Fred]

12 hours ago, Mad Cyril said:

I am proud that no one on this thread has brought up drink driving.

It's great that we are big enough to move on and let the whole drink driving thing go.

He has served his ban for drink driving and as such, there is simply no reason to mention drink driving again.

I packed it in years ago..always spilling me ale..