England was prepared for war. After being battered and bruised by the US and Algeria, and limping unconvincingly past Slovenia, the nation awaited its D-Day against the old foe, Germany. The headline writers in the English media couldn’t have scripted it better. But nobody was prepared for the massacre.
After the youthful German side humiliated England’s seasoned stars, the knives are now out as the media backlash turns on England’s soccer stars. But why does the English press scourge its stars when the Irish media fawn over Roy Keane even though he walked on in the Irish team in Saipan? Understand this and you will uncover the stark differences between the inner workings and mentality of the media in England and Ireland.
The media circus surrounding England is always an amusing spectacle. Pre-tournament they hype up their ‘boys’ to beat all comers and lift the World Cup, simply to set them up for the fall.
The statistics speak for themselves — when it comes to the World Cup England has only ever reached one final, on their home turf, which they won in 1966. But building the team up for success is a means to an end for the English tabloid mentality.
The English brand of journalism requires a constant supply of victims — misbehaving footballers, unfaithful rack stars, sleazy politicians. The England team, and its wagon full of pampered Premiership stars, provides a treasure trove of potential fall guys. It is always easier to scourge a scapegoat than to accept the possibility that, God forbid, other countries could actually be better than England!
So get prepared for the feeding-frenzy when, rather than if, England fails in its insurmountable challenged laid down by the press and does not bring the World Cup back to Blighty. But how can the British public be so blind? Well, tabloid culture can only thrive on ignorance.
Just think back the angry mob, fuelled by the News Of The World’s campaign to name and shame sex offenders, that attacked the home of a pediatrician because they failed to understand the difference between the word “pediatrician” on the brass plaque outside her home and the word “pedophile”. Doh! A truly Homer Simpson moment if there ever was one.
So what is different about the Irish media? Well, firstly, the English have always thrived on moral outrage. A politician that goes astray or a footballer that cheats on his wife is held up as a figure of ridicule and is punished by having every minutiae of his ‘crime’ dissected.
The Irish public isn’t as swayed by scandal as much as they are facts. We are among the elite when it comes to our readership of newspapers, with 87pc of Irish adults regularly reading a daily paper. In the UK the picture is not so healthy.
In 1986, 72pc of 18 to 27-year-olds read a newspaper at least three days a week, according to the British Social Attitudes study. By 2006, the figure had dropped to 42pc. And within the 72pc who read the paper in 1986, only 42pc of them still read a daily paper 20 years afterwards.
Media writer Roy Greenslade believes the British general public may simply have lost its interest for news – that is, hard, analytical news. Much of the news people do consume now centres on popular culture.
So while Ronan Keating will make the front pages here after his marriage break-up, the feeding frenzy so common in England where rubbish bins will be raided and ex-lovers coaxed to come forward with sleazy details, simply does not happen to the same degree.You won’t find fake Sheikhs, honey traps or money traps set to embarrass celebs and politicians. When the Australian cricket team arrived in Ireland recently the players and management were very suspicious of the fact that ‘ordinary’ people were flooding around them going about their usual business in their hotel. They had to be reminded that they were in Ireland and not Britain, and they weren’t about to fall victim to a tabloid sting.Roy Keane split the country in two when he decided to turn his back on Ireland during the 2002 World Cup, but ultimately the fallout landed more on the FAI rather than individual players.
John Terry’s footballing crimes are far less, but he can expect a tough season ahead when he returns home. This is a footballer who has been caught parking in handicap parking spaces, peeing in public and accepting money for giving tours of his team’s facilities, but it was only his sexual escapades that saw his captain’s armband taken away. Now he is fair game is the eyes of the press and expect him to get a royal roasting once England fail to land top spot.
In the end people get the media they deserve. So, thankfully, cheque-book journalism doesn’t rule the roost here in Ireland. Irish people demand more of their media, a fact that has been a rude wake up call for the British tabloids after they attempted to flood our market with ‘Irish’ editions of their scandal sheets.
So we should all feel a little sorry for team England. They may have thee lions on their chest, but thanks to the heavy weight of media expectation on their shoulders, they will always be 11 lambs on the pitch fearing slaughter.