Former Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan ‘doesn’t blame’ Erik ten Hag for banning certain journalists from asking questions at Friday’s press conference.
The Dutchman told reporters on Tuesday that he found their coverage of Manchester United’s FA Cup semi-final win over Coventry City ‘embarrassing’ and ‘a disgrace’.
With three newspapers banned from asking questions on Friday, talkSPORT’s Simon Jordan was asked by Jim White whether reporters can only ask Ten Hag questions if he likes the way they’re asked.
Jordan disagreed and said (via talkSPORT): “No, I don’t think that’s a fair characterisation, Jim. I think that the media and certain sections of the media don’t have a God-given right to ask certain questions or to be afforded the opportunity to ask certain questions, and narratives get created by the media.
“Do I think it’s advisable shut down them so they can be even more vociferous in their condemnation of you? Possibly not. But I’ve had this issue, I had this issue when Simon Greenberg was the editor of the Evening Standard, and went on to be Chelsea’s head of communications, telling me about my football club.
“So I banned him because I got fed up with the way they were behaving. I remember watching Alan Sugar struggle with the press over the battle between him and [Terry] Venables, and him and potentially George Graham.
“Because certain sections of the press, the Mail and Jeff Powell, were very friendly with certain people and they created a narrative. Watch Todd Boehly, watch the media narrative around Todd Boehly and the fact he’s ‘an idiot American that doesn’t know what he’s doing’ and he’ll carry that with him for some time.
“So narratives get created by newspapers, so I understand why you’d go, ‘I tell you what, if that’s the way you want to play this game, if you want to paraphrase words and stick ’embarrassing’ in front of me and get me to bite down on the word ’embarrassing’ so you can create headlines off it, then you’re not a journalist that I particularly want to talk to.’
“So it reminds that press that they don’t have a God-given right, if the press had their way they’d pick the England team, they’d pick the England manager, they’d tell you what everything’s wrong with society without providing any solutions.
“So I make him right but I try and put myself in that position and think to myself, ‘Would I let some saucy sod journalist try and create a situation with me where I couldn’t deal with him?’
“And gave him that level of power that he felt that he was being excluded because it was that important. But that’s me, and not a huge PR mechanism like Manchester United.”
White, formerly of Sky Sports, proceeded to ask Jordan what the point of banning journalists is.
“To remind the press,” Jordan added. “Because I remember, again using Simon Greenberg as an example, he told me that the results and the performances of Crystal Palace players were often shaped by the newspaper reporting.
“For which I nearly spat my dummy across the room because actually you’re reporting the results that we do, you’re nothing, you’re bugger all to do with the outcome. It’s reminding the press that they are a cog on the wheel, that they’re part of the equation, they aren’t the equation.
“And so when they get ahead of themselves with opinions, what the press writes, like all of us and we sit here the same, is an opinion, it ain’t a fact. So if you don’t want to deal with a certain section of the press because you don’t want to, you don’t have to explain it to them, they’re there by consent, not by right.
“So I don’t blame him for doing it because I think that they crossed the line, I do think they crossed the line by trying to force a narrative into Ten Hag’s mouth about the embarrassment he must have felt about that performance.
“Because the moment he cops to that, the back pages of the newspapers would be, ‘Manchester United manager says players are embarrassing.'”
It’s not often we agree with Jordan, but why do journalists feel so entitled whenever a manager comes out swinging in response to their over-the-top reporting? It seems they can give it but they can’t take it.
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