Blaming Social Media Is All Too Easy

May 31, 2011 League Freak League Freak 0

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So there was a rumour doing the rounds recently that one West Tigers player was doing the sexy time thing with another players girlfriend. When it got back to the West Tigers players, apparently they had a bit of a laugh about it. However, as days passed, things started to grate on them, and as people got more and more upset by what was being said, the club decided to speak out.

It was that darn social media!

Believe it or not, I remember the days before Twitter and Facebook, and, we had rumours about players back then too!

I find that most of this stuff surfaces first in the mainstream media and then from there gets commented on in the social media outlets for fans.

I’ll be honest, I’d not heard the rumour until the mainstream media reported it, and then Tigers players denied it on their various Twitter accounts!

See, its much easier for a CEO or a coach to blame the nameless, faceless specter of “social media” than it is to look at the clubs own players.

Look at last year when a photo of Joel Monaghan receiving fellatio from a dog spread like wildfire across the Rugby League community. The first thing that happened was to blame “social media” for spreading the picture around.

No one stopped to ask “Which one of his team mates took this picture, and then made the decision to send it around to everyone else?”.

The worst people when it comes to bring rumours into the main stream Rugby League journalists for the mainstream media! They are all so willing to try and prove they are part of the in crowd that they will write about rumours they have heard.

Some have even listed rumours they have heard in recent weeks to prove how terrible social media is, a double standard if ever there was one.

I personally don’t care enough about players to give a stuff what they do away from football. If I started getting text messages from my mates saying “Have you heard what is happening at the West Tigers?” I’d say “No. Maybe we can talk about it over a tub of yogurt while watching 27 Dresses. Then afterwards, we can sync up our periods”.

Deadset…

The worst for tossing this up into open forums is Channel 9’s Danny Weidler.

Yesterday he reported that a player had decided to move clubs because he has a gambling problem and wanted to move away from his clubs nearby casino.

I cant believe that Channel 9 allowed that to go to air. True or not, it is no one else’s business if a player has a gambling problem. I personally couldn’t give a shit! It serves no purpose reporting such a thing if it is true, so why do it?

These journalists, and you have to use that term loosely, will simply say they are reporting rumours that are doing the rounds anyone on social media. Such an easy cop out…

Forums like Twitter and Facebook have been fantastic for the Rugby League community. it has opened up new ways for people to interact and share their love of the game.

For me personally, Twitter has become a major part of my Rugby League experience. Every day I get to interact with thousands of fans of the game in an open forum.

Most administrators and journo’s hate social media for the most part because they have no control over it. For a club, they know they can’t regulate what is said on social media sites, while journalists find that by the time they are handing in their reports on events in the game, this are long since old news on Facebook and Twitter.

Its that damn social media I tell you. No wonder they hate it….

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• Channel 9, Danny Weidler, Facebook, Joel Monaghan, Journalism, Twitter

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