Butcher you couldn't have expressed my feelings on the subject any better.

It's lazy, poor journalism.

Take this gem from the MEN today - it would appear that Alex Murphy has been asked to give his opinion on Rangi Chase as a full back.

Among a variety of world shattering opinions we get this gem:

"‘I just wonder what persuaded Iestyn Harris to play him at full back." - says the maestro Murphy

Alex - he was moved to full back because Niall Evalds went off injured!

Were you at the bloody game?

My feelings on the MEN and the erstwhile journalist they have covering RL.

The MEN offers a valuable resource for the club, but where it does fall down is in the accuracy of what it reports and the images/names it uses. What does annoy me is the blatant constant rehashing of the same story, the MEN in the Doc have a wonderful resource right on it's doorstep and I'm bewildered why there isn't a weekly column featuring him, simple idea like the surgery or the Docs waiting room.

I often wonder if the reporting and stories used in the MEN would be more accurate and more insightful if one of our number on here wrote it.

I think the MEN neglects Rugby League, mainly because it focuses it's time and column inches on football instead. I can see that this makes sense, but in some respects it disillusions those who aren't interested in football.

If you take a look at the local papers in Warrington and Wigan, they are dominated by RL headlines and stories which have been well-researched and accurately written. The MEN has been sloppy with it's coverage of RL, but then again there probably aren't enough staff members devoted solely to covering Salford Red Devils in as much depth.

It would be nice if the MEN could bring us some positive attention and invest some time in writing-up some factual, accurate, well-edited stories. Give us some exposure please!

Great idea,and we'd know that every word was true

The good doctor has a column every week in the MEN: normally Thursday.

I pick up the free Thurs and Fri editions for colleagues at work. I also check it every day and buy it if I want to read the story at leisure.

The Locke story was poor, damnably so, but we do not do badly in inches. Sadly a story on a City player's underwear is more important than Salford signing Thurston (we haven't, by the way) when it comes to selling the MEN.

As for the Metro: read everywhere ..... sheesh

This is enough ammunition for the MEN to do an exclusive on Salford signing Thurston.

Butcher, I completely agree with all the points you have raised.

The problem I have is not with the amount of inches we get (which is far more than in previous years) but how poorly the articles are put together. So many spelling mistakes, grammatical and factual errors it's untrue. I'm not exactly perfect in that respect, but I don't work as a journalist!

Quite agree with the above. I think some journalists just make up stuff, certainly rehash a lot of stories
I went to a meeting years ago when Gus Risman was our manager/coach and he said,( regarding the late great journalist), Jack McNarmara
" you may not agree with everything Jack writes but we get plenty of columns/publicity in the MEN from him

I never read the rag personally. But speaking of journalism goes back to the Sky TV coverage of Super League. It's got to the point now where games are being reffed with SKY being the proxy! The way that Eddie Hemmings (a real journalist) goes on about certain decisions and WON'T let it go until one of his colleagues (usually Phil) chimes in and and "puts it to bed".....with the irritation very obvious in his voice(quite rightly) is ridiculous. They should take their lead from people like Ray warren and Phil Gould who rarely get embroiled in specific incidents. I think even Stuart Cummings get fed up with it sometimes.

I agree.
If the St Helens game hadn't been televised,I think Hock would still be with us,although I'm not sure how long for ,or whether it would've been a good thing anyway !
It's the same with soccer,the pundits are very entertaining and informative,but they're putting massive pressure on the authorities

I watch SL games without the SKY commentary for the reasons mentioned above, that and I find Carney the single most annoying person on TV.

When you watch the NRL coverage the presenters are much more informative, infinitely more entertaining and in Yvonne Sampson they have the next ex Mrs MR. Ray Warren exudes knowledge, Sterling is just entertaining, Ray Gould has done it all and even with his association to the Panthers offers the most subjective incite into the players/teams and even the most obviously biased commentator Wally Lewis speaks with such authority his bias towards Queensland/Brisbane doesn't really matter.

I've said it time and again SKY should invest and do what it takes to get Andrew Voss over here, he is quite simply brilliant and the partnership he struck up with Brian Noble when they both worked on the last RL world cup shows that some of the presenters we have over here are dragged down by the people they have working with them.

Living in HillBilly Land, I need teh MEN to keep abreast of Salford's [delwoes[/del news.

However to give the thead context, today's MEN (Wed 04/03/15) has a whole page on Salford with the bulk of it the good doctor's column. The other is the Locke story re not going to Scortland and the Chase story Mr BF referred to.

Not bad in space when the big boys are playing tonight.

I think it's a bit of everything that has been mentioned:

- The paper’s editorial attitude to the game in the last 15 or so years.
- Insatiable appetite for football, crushing every other sport.
- Industry still in flux, shaping articles for online consumption, clickbait etc. (Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph fingered for this recently too.)
- Readability, reduced attention span, dual screens etc.
- Heavier leaning toward the wont of advertisers.
- Competing with the immediacy of social media.

Another thing, clubs are nowhere near as reliant on print media as they used to be. So they can be more guarded, or less forthcoming with information, than they used to be. So the newspaper is damned if it publishes nothing and damned when it has to manufacture something.

I cannot remember the quote ... it was from such as Beaverbrooke.
Simply put, he said a newspaper will not sell if it stuck to the truth and instructed, but would make a profit if it entertained instead of worrying about truth.