As an Arsenal fan, my entire blog reading and now podcasting experience has always been on the fringe. I rarely listen to or read the same things that most fans read. I sometimes do this on purpose and at the same time it’s just part of who I am, as in I try to be different and not follow what most people do. At least I like to think that but I also listen to talkSPORT literally all day long.
Back in the day I read Arsenal News Review and Arsenal Muse which were very much boutique blogs to a degree because they weren’t the most popular and the kind of writing was not only incredibly eloquent but the topics were very interesting and niche and they have inspired me to do this, same with Le Grove, now a good friend of mine who aside from being a great writer, he’s a great human.
My point is I’ve tried reading other blogs like Arseblog and others and they just don’t do it for me but more than a preference, it’s more of a loyalty thing. I have little time and I go to the things that I want to read/see from the people that I respect, so it’s normal that I will visit the same sites or listen to the same podcasts all the time. The key part here is that there are hundreds of them for the men’s team and we can choose from so many.
For Arsenal Women the options are very few and nowhere near as good as they should be and I say this as someone with a blog and a podcast who can and should do better with every single episode.
As the game grows and we have a need for more outlets this need implies there are very few, like I said and with that comes the continues growth of the one leader/source of info, while others try to catch up, but that seems unlike to happen. So that source basically holds the monopoly and everyone and their mother believes they hold the truth. And before you think I’m talking about any one podcast, please know this is applicable to any topic, any podcast and any potential news monopoly.
Putting all of our trust into one source is very dangerous because it empowers said source and so much power for a handful of people is a recipe for disaster because not everyone knows how to handle that, they don’t know how to be responsible with that and take advantage of it with say, leaking of information to fans who they know will spread it all over Twitter, or hypothetical things like that.
I know there is not a lot that you can do in terms of being a bonafide source of news, but if that’s what you want I encourage you to do it, to have the proper education and schooling and not just be legit journalist but also have your badges or have experience coaching and with tactics, if you’re gonna talk about that.
Anybody can have a pod/blog, ummm HELLO… but not everyone should talk about tactics and claim things that will be believed just because they have a platform and an audience.
Sometimes people forget that certain parts of media in general can be an extension of the club or the narrative the club wants to put out and this has been a thing for every club basically forever.
I’m gonna do my very best to not speculate and not get drawn into this Viv situation because I think the last thing she needs is literally us talking about things we don’t know and we just assume and you know what they say about assumptions.
d ❤
THAT ARSENAL WOMEN PODCAST on:
APPLE PODCASTS
SPOTIFY
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