Journalistic Tricks Of The Trade

You may have read in my earlier post entitled, An Encounter With Kinnear & Llambias that whilst in the departure lounge at Newcastle airport on 27 September, I had retold the details of my "encounter" to Shaun Custis, a journalist on The Sun who also happens to be a Newcastle fan. Whilst I was sitting next to Custis at the airport, he was tapping away on his laptop writing up his match report for publication in Monday's paper. Because of this, I decided to buy The Sun on Monday 29 September and imagine my surprise when I turned to the Newcastle v Blackburn match report and discovered that Custis had written the following -

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"Joe Kinnear sat in the airport departure lounge heading for London, otherwise known as Newcastle's head office. Alongside him was managing director Derek Llambias, who offered some words of wisdom to the Toon's new caretaker boss after they had witnessed a fifth defeat in a row. Llambias said, 'it will quieten down off the pitch, Joe. You just have to get it right on the pitch'".

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I say that I was surprised to read this because I know for a fact that Custis did not hear Llambias use those words and that he only got it from me. I know this, because when I arrived in the airport departure lounge at the gate designated for our flight, I sat down next to Custis, who was talking on his mobile phone. Kinnear walked in alone, without Llambias at that point. Custis saw Kinnear and said to the person he was talking to on the phone that he had just seen Kinnear walk in and that two weeks previously Llambias had been on the equivalent flight back to London Stansted after the Hull City match. Custis remarked that he was surprised that they were "slumming it" by using easyJet so often. When Custis finished his phone call, I recounted my story to him and as we were talking we made our way towards the gate to board the plane. Until I told him, Custis did not know that Llambias was on the flight. Custis and I boarded the plane through the rear door and Custis sat in an aisle seat very near the back of the plane. I sat a few rows further forward. Llambias and Kinnear sat in the middle of the plane. This is how I know that I was the source for Custis's opening paragraphs in his report.

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This episode provides an interesting insight into the way in which (some) journalists work and it is interesting that Custis assumed that I was a reliable source, even though he had never met me before. It is also the case that the use of quotation marks implies the verbatim reporting of what Llambias said but given that I actually heard what he said, I can tell you that it was not exactly as Custis reports. Custis also inaccurately says that Kinnear and Llambias were sitting in the departure lounge when they had this conversation but in fact they were not - they were actually standing in the queue to get through security.

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Despite the inaccuracies, I still enjoyed being responsible for the opening paragraph or two in the match report published in Britain's most widely read daily newspaper!