Yes, I know they suck. Please don't reply with comments about journalists making things up to selling newspapers or the rest of it. That's not what this is about.
So on Sunday Mick Malthouse wrote a column about Nat Fyfe being crap. Seemed odd. Nat Fyfe's a very good player, who has weaknesses like everyone, but his Browlow Medal form is hardly the most glaring problem Fremantle have.
And Karl Langdon reckons he's saving up photos of Jesse Hogan to get him suspended from Fremantle...or something like that. It's hard to follow Karl.
And a few years ago, I think it was the 2010 Grand Final that the Eagles were smashes in, the Melbourne papers went big with the drug problems on the morning of the Grand Final, upsetting the Eagles with suggestions the Melbourne media were trying to rattle them.
Mick's article seemed odd, but Mick is odd and I'm not suggesting he's done anything wrong but, if Fyfe had been a different person and read that, and let it get to him, he could have had a bad day at work. Fyfe's performance being a huge factor in Fremantle's performance.
This sort of thing happens a lot. Journalists will target a player more than you would expect them to, often on the morning on a game. Karl could have released one of his saved photos of Hogan on the morning before Hogan lined up in an important match (if we played important matches) and effected the result of the game had Hogan been playing and playing well.
I also think back to Rhys Palmer and the Rising Star Award. He was hounded by the Victorian media about his kicking, because they wanted Rioli to win the award. I tend to think that got into his head and his kicking became a much bigger issue in his later years because of that publicity. It was an unprecedented attack on a kid, just because he'd won something.
Which gets me to gambling. The media in this country are really closely tied to the betting community. There are a lot of bookmakers advertising with the media companies, there are a lot of people in football with gambling issues.
I know they have a rule which stops accredited media from betting on a game they are at for work but I think there need to be tighter restrictions on them, similar to the ones imposed on players. There's a lot of power in the media and the organisations that publish them are not particularly ethical nowadays, it wouldn't be hard for them to help produce an outcome favourable to someone or something,
