In almost the same breath as some members of the Scottish sports media have been criticising the quality of news coming out of Rangers, they’ve ironically appeared to let standards slip at home.
A smattering of half-baked conspiracy theory columns which muse over everything from Ross Wilson to the SPFL to Steven Gerrard’s future have – far from enlighten us to the goings-on at the club – done little more than redden the cheeks of Rangers fans, and more with embarrassment than anger.
Somewhere between all that sensationalist drivel, the increasingly aggressive commentary, those dubious if not serious statements, and apparently falsified transfer reporting, there’s a bountiful amount of irony.
Rangers’ radical footballing press policy – where they charge newspapers to enter the press box and ask questions at Ibrox – remains a hot topic of contention and it too has been forensically examined in the last week.
Like vultures picking at bones, the club’s Champions League collapse has had plenty of the Gers’ detractors salivating as they make do with the sinews of our costly European failure to prop up anything from imminent departures to Ibrox unrest.
It is of course being batted back tenfold by the direct communication of those in the know, by fan media or by the club themselves. This is the difference.
Information is coming out from numerous places and not just from traditional sources. Issues of partisanship remain but – then again – what’s new?
However, speculation – it appears – has taken the place of the hard-line, Daily Bugle, Stetson and overcoat frontline press journalism we’ve been told the Scottish sports media is for the last few months.
It’s a special kind of hypocrisy to in one minute point to the moral philosophy of journalism and its role in society whilst the next deconstructing it with completely speculative, vexatious coverage.
The bulk of the Scottish sports media has never been this tough, take-to-task tour de force that travels up and down the country peeling back the layers of corruption in our beautiful game.
What a load of nonsense.
Instead, if anything, these last few weeks have proven that plenty in fact serve the opposite purpose, their status as the nation’s chip wrappers instead to enforce the status quo and fail to properly hold the game’s governance to account.
It’s especially easier if everyone has a common enemy.
The juxtaposition of both arguments in the Rangers v SPFL/cinch fiasco at certain outlets for example is an insult to the concept of journalism they are apparently desperate to uphold.
We live in a tribal ecosystem and there’s never going to be a complete trust in the media be you a bluenose or any other fan north of the border.
But far from convince supporters that they should be in the Ibrox press room, the coverage of the last week will have most glad that some are nowhere near our club.
Other outlets and journalists have taken on more responsibility and are now more reliably informing football fans than the archaic institutions they’ve taken the place of.
You can say this whilst also acknowledging that the pay-to-play model is very much something which is up for debate.
Giving unfair coverage oxygen is the crux of the issue (yes, I notice the irony), and Rangers fans everywhere are waking up to the fact that if we want change, then we must do our talking, with our walking.
The power is very much in our hands, or rather at the end of our fingertips.
In the immediate aftermath of Rangers’ Champions League exit, there was much pundit schadenfreude aimed at Ibrox.
