Newcastle United hierarchy – No wonder if they don’t speak to NUFC media after this | OneFootball

Newcastle United Sporting Director Paul Mitchell has dominated the headlines in this international break.

Without proper football matches taking place, just endless pointless internationals, it can always be a dodgy time, with the NUFC media so desperate to still get your attention and clicks.

What a dream then for the Newcastle United journalists who regularly cover the club.

A big group of them invited to an audience with Paul Mitchell, the recently installed replacement for Dan Ashworth, as the new Newcastle United Sporting Director.

Mitchell with an excellent CV, having worked at the likes of Tottenham and Monaco and attracted plenty of positive coverage for the jobs he has done at previous clubs.

It was never going to be easy arriving in July, the middle of a transfer window and both Elliot Anderson and Yankuba Minteh having only days earlier having had to be sold by the 30 June 2024 to keep United within three season PSR limits. Sales basically necessitated due to the ambitious spending of the previous two and a half years since Eddie Howe and the Newcastle United owners replaced Steve Bruce and Mike Ashley.

So only some nine weeks after taking the job, the journalists who regularly cover the club, getting a full on sit down chance to quiz the new Newcastle United Sporting Director, after what had proved to be the most challenging of all transfer windows since the change of ownership. In terms of dealing with fan hopes/expectations that weren’t satisfied this time, in the eyes of so many supporters.

My own opinion is that some of the Newcastle United journalists who were granted this privilege, very much abused it.

From my understanding there were around nine or ten journalists at this audience with the Newcastle United Sporting Director and some of them have gone to it, with the sole intention of going as negative and controversial as possible with their reporting on it afterwards.

With plummeting newspaper sales, you can understand so many in the industry worried about their future careers, however, it is embarrassing to see just how desperate some of them are in terms of getting attention and clicks.

As they know fine well in this ridiculous modern age of media, especially online, the temptation to go as negative and controversial as possible, is clearly impossible to turn down for so many desperate journalists.

If you read a cross-section of the reports from the various NUFC journalists after the meeting with the Newcastle United Sporting Director, they reached both extremes, some reported it as coming away feeling very very positive after Paul Mitchell had spoken to them, whilst others couldn’t have been more negative and controversial if they tried.

The trouble is of course, as I said, both these Newcastle United journalists AND the fans, knows which accounts of the meeting with Paul Mitchell will get the most attention and follow up coverage.

The follow up coverage from the media overall AND what I have read and heard from Newcastle United fans, has almost entirely focused on the most negative and controversial accounts of what was said in this question and answer session with Paul Mitchell.

Now we don’t want journalists, or whoever, pretending everything is brilliant, just to stay in with the club. However… that is now what we are talking about here, in my opinion. It isn’t a case of some brave journos prepared to speak out and tell the truth whilst the rest are happy clappers afraid of upsetting the club and/or the new Newcastle United Sporting Director.

For me, these journalists have had an agenda even before the meeting, determined to go as negative and controversial as possible.

All journalists will give their own spin after such a group interview, as they don’t all want to be telling exactly the same story, they will want to draw differing conclusions, so people reading aren’t reading exactly the same from each of the NUFC media. However, this has gone beyond that.

Leading to pathetic follow up reports/claims that the Newcastle United Sporting Director could resign or be sacked, after only taking the job in July.

As the very reliable Chris Waugh of The Athletic reports (see below), this meeting between ten or so NUFC journalists and the Newcastle United Sporting Director was as informal as it could possibly be.

It wasn’t intended as a Police style interview where every single word was intended to be taken down and used as evidence against him.

As the man from The Athletic says, it was a very free and easy conversation where the journalists could ask anything and everything over the course of around 90 minutes.

Not the journalists pre-warned that they could only ask a very limited range of questions, not a list of things that were forbidden. So I think on that basis there is a big trust factor in play, journalists expected to give a complete picture of what was said, not to take out one thing, one comment, one word, then make their report entirely about that.

It would be different if Paul Mitchell/The club, had sent a set of quotes to all the journalists, or they had been invited to hear a very limited set of points that the Newcastle United Sporting Director wanted to put across, with very limited/no opportunity to ask questions and/or open it up into a lengthy informal chat.

Taking everything together, all of the accounts I have read, my take on what the Newcastle United Sporting Director wanted to get across and did actually say, was basically this…

Excited about this job at Newcastle United, the owners are still committed to throwing everything at making the team/club successful, wants to work in a very positive way with Eddie Howe for the best possible joint outcome, that things could have been done better in the past with player recruitment – same with this one just ended, a determination to do far better than this in the future, that things such as PSR do impact but that Newcastle United are in a good place to move forward, things take time, that we need to judge him (Paul Mitchell) and others in the longer term.

The Q and A with the Newcastle United Sporting Director lasted around the time we spend watching an entire match, 90 minutes or so. Think about when you are sitting with a group of mates watching Newcastle United play and if you are chatting throughout the entire 90 minutes, just how much you might say.

Sadly, the way some of the journalists have acted, means there is every chance that there will be no repeat of this type of access to the Newcastle United hierarchy. In many ways you wouldn’t blame them, when such an ultra negative and controversial spin is going to be put on the odd thing in such a lengthy informal meeting. A chat, rather than a very formal question and very considered answer.

In my day job (nothing to do with football), I deal with journalists a lot. I quickly learnt as a naive and young employee in my industry, some very painful and quick lessons. If a journalist asks to questions, only say what you want them to use, keep it brief. As every time pretty much, they will try to get you into a chat/conversation and when you are more relaxed, feeling less formal, not even thinking this is part of the interview, you then find afterwards that these things you very likely assumed were just a friendly chat, end up what they quote you on.

Most times now, unless a journalist I implicitly trust, I just say send the questions over and I then reply with quotes by email. That means you are in control and what you say can’t be twisted or spun, or nowhere near as easy. Basically, I am happy for them to say whatever, just so long as the quotes I have sent over, are used in their entirety, as I have wanted them to look.

This is the problem, you really couldn’t blame Paul Mitchell for thinking, why should I give these Newcastle United journalists such free and easy informal access, if then some of them are going to abuse it, with endless follow up nonsense appearing in the media?

I always think of the brilliant Chris Donald when it comes to dealing with the media.

If you can’t place him, he is a lifelong Newcastle United fan and most importantly, the man we have to thank for creating Viz. A real Geordie legend.

Anyway, he got asked to be part of the ‘Journal Jury’ many years ago when these things first started. Basically, after each match, a number of Newcastle fans asked to comment on what they had seen, what they thought.

I remember reading in an interview with Chris Donald, that he drove the editor crazy at The Journal.

Not because his comments were poor, quite the opposite.

As you can imagine, every time Chris Donald by far the best and funniest to read, after each game.

It wasn’t the quality of the Viz genius’ comments that was the problem. It was the fact that they asked him for 50 words (or however many it was at the time) and he gave them… 50 words!

That’s right, he gave them the exact number of words they asked for, so they couldn’t potentially change the meaning/impact of what he wanted to say. If they chose not to use say 30 of his words, then The Journal would end up looking daft if using just a 20 word comment.

The other half dozen or so fans contributing, no doubt happily sending in far more than would ever be used, not switched on enough, or confident enough, to know that then The Journal would pick which of their lengthy comments to use and maybe disregard what they had most wanted to get across.

Chris Waugh of The Athletic talking about what happened when the NUFC media were given a group interview with Newcastle United Sporting Director Paul Mitchell, a few snippets of what he had to say about the meeting, giving a great background to what actually happened:

‘I was at St James’ Park for the interview, which took place around a boardroom-style table in the Sir Bobby Robson Suite. It was as informal as a formal interview can get — if that makes any sense — but there were around a dozen or so people sat around a table in a room with no natural light, so it was quite a curious setting.’

‘In recent months, Darren Eales, the CEO, and Mitchell have accepted questions from journalists and have tried to explain the club’s strategy and thought process at an executive level. That is a positive move and I hope it continues.

As for what Mitchell actually said, I recognise that there were several different slants to the coverage provided by those in attendance. Perhaps that was inevitable, given that Mitchell answered questions for nearly 90 minutes and no subject was off limits, which again is to his credit, but that also shows his message was arguably a little muddled.’

‘Mitchell’s keenness to underline the positive difference he believes he can make may have — seemingly inadvertently — come across as a criticism of what had come before.