Celtic Diary Thursday June 9: Is This Why The Guardian Pulled The Res 12 Ad ?

One of the delights, yes, just one of, of doing the diary is that you get to hear all kinds of things.

Some things are quite basic, and need no further thought. Stuff that comes flying in from loads of different places and you know its highly likely to be true.

Some things maybe need a little bit of input from another source. A will tell you one thing, B will mention something else and when C says something unconnected you realise that actually what has happened is all three sources have combined to give you a sense of what has actually happened. Thats how old style journalism used to work. Hacks would meet up in a boozer to do wee bits of research, they’d ask each other what they were working on, and suddenly they’d get new info from a colleague which helped them out.

These days, of course, they just get press releases and print them verbatim. Which is a shame, but then again they don’t want to upset their source-and they certainly don’t want to upset advertisers. Print media advertising is dropping in direct correlation to print media readership, and unsurprisingly , thats led to newspaper moguls panicking about upsetting anyone who puts business their way.

A free, independent media is vital in a democracy. It would be nice to have either, if you ask me.

Yesterday, CQN released a statement…

ATTEMPTS by Celtic Quick News to place newspaper statements on Resolution 12 in the UK media have been mysteriously  frustrated in what looks like an attempt to close down discussion on the subject.

It was an advert, and a wee bit more credit to the requisitioners wouldn’t go amiss here… I mention that it was an advert , well, you’ll see why in a minute.

Resolution 12 of course has been largely ignored by the media over the past three years.

However while a level censorship has been achieved in newspapers  in both Scotland and England, the same has NOT been the case in Switzerland.

The Tribune de Genéve passed the Resolution 12 Newspaper Statement for publication and this proceeded as planned on Wednesday 1st June – the same day as the SFA’s AGM. 

Stewart Regan, the SFA chief executive , looked rather uncomfortable uncomfortable when he was asked questions on Resolution 12. The premise for the questions was that a group of Scottish football supporters (From Celtic, Aberdeen, Hearts, Hibs, Dundee Utd, Albion Rovers and others) had crowd funded an advertisement in the Tribune de Genéve on the state of governance in Scottish football.

Regan was forced to speak publicly about Resolution 12 for the first time in three years.

The cat was well and truly out of the bag.

The next day on the news aggregate sites the top sports stories for The Herald, Daily Record and Scotsman were on Resolution 12.

The Offshoregame.net site reported on an increase in traffic to their site and also noted that European journalists had been in touch having read the Statement in the Tribune de Genéve.

The advertisement in the Swiss newspaper, which cost round £5000, had done it’s job.

Auldheid, who had spend 3 years banging his head against a brick wall trying to get media attention on the substance of Resolution 12, called the Swiss ad placement a ‘masterstroke’ and the three relevant officials at UEFA – all English speakers – got their copies.

Fait accompli.  

So any attempt to close down the initiative, which CQN knew would have an effect after the successes of the New Entity statement in the Sunday Herald in January 2015, simply failed.

Word got out, in English, in a French language newspaper in Switzerland. The lengths you have to go to, to expose wrongdoing.

However what has happened to the newspaper activity in the UK?

Early last week CQN published a story about the Herald Group on newspapers in relation to this Resolution 12 statement.

As mentioned above, their Sunday Herald newspaper carried the New Entity statement on 25th January 2015 after it was approved by their lawyers and industry lawyers in London. Complaints were made to the ASA about this Statement but all were dismissed.

The Herald’s sales team had tried on a regular basis since that date to get CQN to place more advertising in their newspapers and indeed offered to re-visit the New Entity issue before this season’s Scottish Cup semi-final. CQN weren’t interested.

When CQN began crowd funding for the newspaper activity to support the objectives of Resolution 12 the plan was to promote in newspapers in Switzerland and in England. However the Herald pitched in again and after various discussions, CQN were looking at taking some space in Sunday Herald.

The Herald Group never saw the text for the Resolution 12 statement.

Out of the blue, CQN then received a message saying that the ‘powers that be’ had decided that CQN could NOT place this Resolution 12 statement in any of their newspapers. Even if the advertisement simply said RESOLUTION 12 and nothing else, it was not going to be published. Resolution 12 was officially unmentionable.

However it wouldn’t be long before the statement appeared in the Tribune de Genéve, forcing their hand and ensuring that Resolution 12 would be mentioned in their  Glasgow based newspapers.

But what of the Guardian?

Two half page advertisements were booked into the Guardian and were scheduled to appear on Wednesday 1st June and Saturday 4th June. The Guardian had been advised of the subject matter and were well aware of the previous activity in the Sunday Herald. They were keen to be involved.

The space was paid for and all was proceeding according to plan. Until senior management once again got involved.

CQN received an email on Friday 27th May, from a senior manager who had not been involved in the booking, which said:

“I regret to inform you that adverts such as this get reviewed by our editorial board and as such they’ve decided not to carry the advertisement on this occasion. We therefore will be cancelling the booking this end with no monies due.

“We will of course reimburse you in full and this has been actioned by myself already; it will be with our accounts team who will be making the necessary transaction as soon as possible.” 

The Statement had once again been spiked and would not appear in The Guardian.

This happened on the same day that the Resolution 12 submission was formally sent to UEFA and a copy was posted to Celtic FC.

Monday 30th May was a Bank Holiday, so on Tuesday morning CQN fully expected The Guardian to have returned the crowd funded money – again around £5000, so that other media outlets could be used. The strategy was to ensure that the Statement appeared on that Wednesday, the same day as the SFA AGM.

The Guardian did not reimburse CQN as promised. The refund had not been ‘actioned already’ and indeed it took until this morning, Wednesday 8th June, before the funds were recovered.

CQN spoke repeatedly to the senior manager in question and also to his colleague who organised the booking and explained that there were alternative plans for the funds, that the money was crowd funded with many hundreds of football supporters having contributed and that they had a right to know why the Guardian had taken the money, cancelled that booking and were frustrating alternative plan by not returning the funds.

The Guardian’s sales manager, who took the booking, told CQN that the decision wasn’t taken by his boss or indeed his boss but even higher up the chain of command. He told us that it was a ‘unique situation’ that their team had never experienced before and could no understand why the Guardian were reluctant to return the funds as promised.

CQN has an obligation to update everyone who contributed to this initiative on the difficulties faced. However we had to wait until the money was safely recovered.

There may be questions for the Guardian from any of their readers interested in their handling of this.

And for those who set out to frustrate our plans and suppress the message of the Resolution 12 statement – and we know you are reading this – the message from CQN is that you failed. And you have saved us £5000 into the bargain. This will be used in places you least expect, very soon indeed.

Apart from the text implying that CQN is the driving force behind resolution 12, and giving the impression it is in control, its a decent and honest statement.

At least we know what we’re up against.

Private Eye is the next target to place the advert, and , like Etims and Matt Mcglones Alternative View, -is one of the few  outlets unanswerable to corporate -or other-sponsors. so there’s no reason for them not to run it, unless there actually are legal problems. come to think of it, that doesn’t usually bother them.

The Eye works on the premise that people involved in a story will ring them up and tell them what is going on, and they usually run with it.

Now, back to the Guardian and its refusal to run the advert.

This will be down to the  decision of a senior editor or even the owner. It will be either a legal or financial decision.

It won’t be legal, as the Swiss paper ran with it, and there’s little doubt the initial submssion was checked and approved.

Remember what I said at the top about how wee stories come in ?

Well, there’s another type,

The ones you have to go digging for yourself.

We know the ad was pulled, and we know no reason was given. We also know the money took some time to be refunded, which does indeed suggest an attempt to get the advert placed elsewhere was being obstructed.

This tactic is designed to discourage , and if they weren’t up against a group of people with rebel blood running through their veins, and a healthy sense of paranoia, then it might have succeeded.

But we’re kind of used to fighting by ourselves.

So, presuming that there’s no legal reason, as the publication in Switzerland proves, then it must be a financial reason.

Advertising revenue, as We mentioned, is plummeting, and no newspaper will knowingly upset its principal advertisers.

So, who are they ?

From the Guardian of October 18 last year-which was a Sunday, so it may have appeared in the Observer…

The summer of 2015 will be remembered as the moment a perfect storm hit national newspapers.

The print advertising market, which still remains the lifeblood of income for most publishers on the path to digital sustainability, has been down unprecedented levels of as much as 30% in some weeks over the past six months.

Most of the UK’s top 10 newspaper advertisers have stripped their budgets: the biggest, Sky, has cut its spend by 20% in the first nine months, according to unofficial figures. Second ranked BT has lopped 18% off its national newspaper ad budget so far, Asda is down 47% and the once ever-reliable Tesco is down 39%.

“It’s a pressure cooker for newspapers,” says the chief marketing officer of one of the UK’s biggest advertisers. “It has reached a breaking point where buying a traditional print ad is no longer the answer. It isn’t that print doesn’t work, there just has to be more focus on what spend is getting the reach, quality and audience cut-through.”

So, do any of those advertisers have a vested interest in keeping the advert off the pages of the Guardian, and would any of them be prepared to whisper a little warning into someones ear ?

Asda ? Tesco ?

And surely it wouldn’t be Sky or BT, who both put money into the game north of the border….

Lets do one of those polls…

Actually, I don’t think we need to.

Sky and BT are both on record as being behind the “Return Of The Old Firm ” nonsense, something which can’t even realistically be discussed between all parties concerned without the use of a medium, and it follows that anything that would upset that agenda would certainly be frowned upon by the broadcasters.

Especially if someone else who would be under pressure from the publication, such as say the man in charge at the SFA made a call asking for a favour or two.

Now, don’t forget, all I’m doing here is working through what I think is a plausible scenario which may, or may not expalin the sudden change of heart at what was once one of the countries more trusted newspapers.

But it would probably be safer to cancel both sports broadcasters anyway, and tell them you feel they are colluding with the cheats.at least until they come out and deny any involvement.

which, in turn , would get the story out there, and people would be talking about it, and asking questions, in a way which the media in Scotland have sadly failed to do.

I want our game back.

You want our game back.

We might have to prise it from somebodys cold, dead fingers.

It’s time for Celtic to do their bit. 

We have supported you, and now you, the club, must support us. 

Celtic need to say something. And they need to say the right thing. 

Now. 

Back at the ranch, Anthony Stokes has been released from his contract at Celtic, and is free to pursue a life of religuous fulfillment.

We wish him well.

More importantly, as ever, there’s a back story, and it seems word got back to Brendan Rodgers that Stokesy-oh, he;’s a lad-wasn’t a stickler for turning up at training while at Hibernian, and it had given manager Rodgers an early opportunity to stamp his authority among the players. and let them know that training is not optional.

And with Stokes linked with Alan Stubbs at Rotherham, everybodys happy.

This is one of the more straightforward stories that a number of people have told us. You see the difference ?

Former manager Neil Lennon has landed a job at Hibernian, giving him a chance to bring it all on himself all over again. It will be interesting to see how the press treat him now he’s over in Edinburgh, where he always received a warm welcome from the natives, who used to go to any extreme just to be near him.

It’s a statement of intent from Hibernian, who have a European campaign to look forward to, and Lennon is the most experienced European campaigner in Scottish football.

Good luck to all of them.

Speaking fo Europe, and speaking of the way the press treat people, how about this from the -yes, you’ve guessed it-the Record.

You’ll not believe what this Rangers fan does to Hibs star Jason Cummings when they meet on holiday

Maybe not, but I certainly have little difficulty in believeing how the paper reports it. Especially in the aftermath of the Hampden riots. ( copyright , SMSM and the Belfast Telegaph. )

THE red-hot hitman was topping up his tan in the sun when he met a Gers fan and he’ll now regret the fact he scored against the Ibrox side. 

ONE of Hibernian’s Scottish Cup final heroes Jason Cummings met his match on holiday when he ran into a Rangers fan still riled by the hitman’s scoring exploits last season.

Cummings helped the Edinburgh side lift the trophy for the first time in 114 years last month as his side won 3-2 at Hampden.

The striker is now a legend in Leith but his new-found status counted for nothing as he fell victim to a pool prank while on his summer holidays.

The 20-year-old had scored the opener in a 3-2 league win over Rangers in April and a thrilled Gers fan was presented with the perfect chance to settle the score as Cummings proved he’s still a bit wet behind the ears when it comes to holiday high jinks.

Where it says “pool prank” , what it actually means 2grabbed by the throat and flung into the pool ” 

Theres a video attached to the story if you want to look for it.

So, lets imagine for a minute wee Boaby from Embra is out on holiday, and he spots Waghorn (pen 0 by the pool, and he flings him nto the water…

Horrible Fenian Bastard Injures Football Hero In Poolside Fracas

You get my drift.

Speaking of the dark side, and their way of ignoring what they don;t want to hear, they may have ignored this tweet;