JOURNALISTS enjoy refering to their craft as "the Fourth Estate". Some even claim it as a profession. However, under the strict dictionary definition of a profession, journalism doesn't qualify - since there is no pre-entry requirement to have undertaken a period of higher education. Also, there is no governing body with absolute control of standards and discipline of members of the profession - otherwise a lot of what you see served up every morning would never get published.
To be fair, efforts are being made to lift standards, there are now several post-graduate university courses in journalism, as well as those much-maligned (and rightly so) diploma and degree courses in "media studies".
The trouble is, all these kids who think they'd like to be journalists, who, in good faith get onto these courses are, by and large, wasting their time. What you learn at these collegeshas as much in common with journalism as third division football has with the Champions League.
I last sat in a class room in 1963, but, I have found myself having to take in hand and teach the job to graduates who hadn't a clue about spelling, sentence construction or grammar - far less spotting the hook on their story and presenting it properly.
Nowadays, as a Staedtler or Waldorf of the press box, I have the freedom to tell it like it is, and right now it aint pretty.
I'm not saying Scotland's full-time football writers are all paragons of virtue and potential Pullitzer prize-winners. OK, the lap top loyal and the members of "the Celtic Family" in particular will not criticise or properly examine the conduct of our two biggest clubs; we've got our fair share of chances, charlatans, crooks and comic singers, but by and large, we do a better job than some of the players we're writing about.
Sadly, things can only get worse, because of the penny-pinching attitudes of some of our media managers.
I now pick my games, I am no longer in the daily "pick me, me sir, I'll cover it" rush for match-reporting commissions, although some of my best mates in the game are still, putting themselves through this purgatory as too-many journalists chase too-few commissions from too-few titles.
But their lot is being made harder by an influx of enthusiastic amateurs, who feel they have a God-given right to cover football matches. These often deluded dummies are being encouraged by media managers who really ought to know better and the result is, you, the public, are not getting the service you are entitled to from your papers.
So bad is the situation, that this season, I am sure we will see blood on the benches in our press boxes.
One jobbing freelance, who has 30-years of experience as a football writer; who can produce the goods at the drop of a hat was moaning to me this week. Towards the end of last season he covered a midweek First Division clash for one of the red top tabloids. There were eight "journalists" in the press box - he was the only one who was a full-timer.
There were a couple of journalism students, getting experience, which is fair enough, we all have to start somewhere: but the other five consisted of two moonlighting policemen, one civil servant and two teachers.
My mate wondered how the teachers would feel if he was to roll up at their school the next morning to teach English or maths. But, of course, it couldn't happen, because teaching is a proper profession, journalism isn't.
Some day it might be, then the moonlighters and chancers would be kept out and perhaps the game would be properly covered, but I fear I will not be around should that day ever arrive.
Until then, when you pick up your morning paper and discover that the match report of the game you watched the previous night bears no resemblence to how you remember it; when John Smith's wonder goal is credited to Joe Jones and names are wrong, as are times of incidents - don't hold this as a reflection on Scotland's football writers, blame the penny-pinchers who are driving down rates and standards and letting the lunatics take over the asylum.
Mind you, it's nothing new. I remember back in his first season as player-manager at Rangers, Graeme Souness took a Rangers XI down to face Troon Juniors. The then number two football writer for the Daily Record crashed his car on the outskirts of Troon and while he sorted things out, I came off the bench to fill-in for him.
I duly filed my match report, but when I opened the Record the next morning I read that Graeme Souness had apparently missed a penalty. This was news to me; he had certainly fired a 25-yard free kick narrowly past, but there wasn't a penalty in the game.
Of course, at the same time as I was reading this, Mr Souness was on the telephone, reading the riot act to the Record scribe, whose name was on the match report.
He in turn telephoned me to find out if I had been drunk when I had filed; but when I confirmed there hadn't been a penalty and voluntarily mentioned the free kick - he went into the Record's production system to check the original copy - when all was revealed.
No penalty was there mentioned in my report, but, a local radio reporter, an un-supervised trainee had sent a report in to the Record, on spec, believing they hadn't had a reporter at the game. A casual Record sports desk sub had spotted the reference to the penalty and without checking, had wrongly added it to my report.
So, because an enthusiastic amateur couldn't tell a 25-yard free kick from a 12-yard penalty and a sub-editor didn't query the differing reports, one of the top men in the game was on the , receiving end of a Souness special.
You can never be too careful, we are told freedom of speech means we have an open media, but, there is less chance of calamity if you trust the professionals, who, I'm afraid are a dying breed in Scottish football coverage.
Enjoy your football coverage this season, but be aware, the report your reading, or the radio reporter you're listening to might not be a professional.
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