[Archived] LET

[the original david brent]

'Nobody' was obviously an exaggeration, but the idea was clearly that very few people read that particular paper. The total circulation of the paper wouldn't fill Ewood Park (25,000-ish, not sure if that takes returns into account), so if you take away the number who already support a club other than Rovers and the number who don't read the sport pages at all then you probably aren't left with many people depending on it for stories about the club. Then consider that the paper is only available days later, by request, outside its circulation area and their website isn't advertised at all as far as I'm aware.

If the owners want to get their message to the fans then I guarantee a national media outlet or the internet would reach more people a lot quicker, rendering a local paper rather useless.

In short, the Lancashire Telegraph has more to gain from Rovers than the club could get from the paper. Just putting Ronaldinho's name and 'Rovers' on the boards outside newsagents will probably have increased their sales today, but has it increased people's exposure to the club? Well since their first order of business should have been to contradict the story they wrote yesterday and every update since it broke has been on most other media sources immediately I would think not.

So there you go, I've explained what I meant (even though I thought it would have been obvious anyway) and I've given you evidence of the limitations of the LET. Just because you read the paper doesn't mean it's an effective tool, so what other evidence have you got to suggest it would be a useful ally for the club?

I acknowledge your argument but i still disagree. I just think your forgetting that probably 90% of Rovers fans live within a circa 10 mile radius of the ground.(this website is not a true reflection of the origin of our support) This 10 mile radius just happens to be the area covered by the LET, and as jim mk 2 quite rightly says, the LET still plays a big part in the lives of many local folk. Circulation of the paper has decreased, but thats a general trend with all newspapers, nationals included. Many Rovers fans in the local area will still primarily rely on the LET as the main source for news about Rovers, as oppose to the internet, and as oppose to brief snippets in the nationals.

One of the main reasons I buy the LET is because I like to read a paper whose sport coverage is predominantly about Rovers and has always been accurate over the years. There has always been a sense of reassurance when reading breaking Rovers news in the LET, ie there is some substance in the story, as oppose to message board speculation. The LET and Rovers have had a good relationship over the years. I think Venkys should be advised that we are a town club, supported overwhelmingly by local people, and to start alienating the local paper, will only serve to further alienate local Rovers fans, who happen to make up 90% (probably more) of our general support.

So that's why I believe the LET is a useful ally for the club. I could understand your point more if we were a Man Utd, who pull in support from all over the world.

I guess we will just have to agree to disagree!

[Jeru tha Damaja]

I acknowledge your argument but i still disagree. I just think your forgetting that probably 90% of Rovers fans live within a circa 10 mile radius of the ground.(this website is not a true reflection of the origin of our support) This 10 mile radius just happens to be the area covered by the LET, and as jim mk 2 quite rightly says, the LET still plays a big part in the lives of many local folk. Circulation of the paper has decreased, but thats a general trend with all newspapers, nationals included. Many Rovers fans in the local area will still primarily rely on the LET as the main source for news about Rovers, as oppose to the internet, and as oppose to brief snippets in the nationals.

One of the main reasons I buy the LET is because I like to read a paper whose sport coverage is predominantly about Rovers and has always been accurate over the years. There has always been a sense of reassurance when reading breaking Rovers news in the LET, ie there is some substance in the story, as oppose to message board speculation. The LET and Rovers have had a good relationship over the years. I think Venkys should be advised that we are a town club, supported overwhelmingly by local people, and to start alienating the local paper, will only serve to further alienate local Rovers fans, who happen to make up 90% (probably more) of our general support.

So that's why I believe the LET is a useful ally for the club. I could understand your point more if we were a Man Utd, who pull in support from all over the world.

I guess we will just have to agree to disagree!

90% of Rovers fans may well live in the Blackburn area, neither of us has done the appropriate leg-work to say for sure, but undoubtedly it will be a sizeable majority. I don't live in Blackburn and I know a number of others who follow the club from further afield, not to mention the people on this and other sites who are strewn across the world and the dozens of people wearing Rovers shirts that I've seen here and abroad.

To pick up on those living in Blackburn, the LET distributes a little under 13,000 newspapers to the Blackburn and Darwen area (combined population a shade over 136,500), so even locally they aren't especially effective at spreading news of the club.

From what I've seen on here and heard around Ewood, I'd say most of the fans have already made their minds up about Venky's, regardless of how they treat the local hacks. If the paper were to be used as a "mouthpiece" for the club they'd be pro-Venky's in every story they write and, with the reaction to the new owners so far, that would only lose them more credibility. Does the local media really want to become the propaganda machine for a regime that isn't well supported among their readership? It would just put them at odds with their audience and that's not really the aim.

If the LET really wants to be taken seriously when it comes to Rovers then they should start researching their stories rather than waiting to be told what to write. They should back the club without being afraid to criticise when need be. Instead they have held back in recent years in order to preserve their only source.

I don't know if people get protective because of some sort of local pride or long-standing attachment to the LET, but the numbers and the style of reporting suggests that it is not an effective advertisement or critic of the club. They have spent too long lapsing into only writing what the club want people to know, and now that the situation has changed they've been caught out because they've forgotten how to do their jobs properly.

[philipl]

13,000 print copies on normal readership multiples implies around about 30,000 readers.

Looking at Alexa, the Lancashire Telegraph is the 4,217th most visited website in the UK and is read by 0.004% of the UK's population of online users on peak days- I think that is about 12,000 unique daily visitors at peak with most of the current traffic looking at Rovers. The geographic distribution of visitors currently is:

United Kingdom 62.0%

India 5.7%

United States 4.9%

Canada 4.7%

Norway 4.3%

El Salvador 3.4%

Spain 3.3%

Turkey 1.1%

OTHER 10.4%

It is about the 10,000th most read website in Norway and ranks 2,000th in El Salvador- is there a pocket of expats out there?

[SAS]

The LET journo's are revelling in the fact we may not sign ronnie. They are taking the runours as factual.

Let's hope it bites them on the bum again!!

[bluebruce]

I get the LET delivered everyday and as its my local paper I will support it, but the quality of journalism is poor.

There are so many mistakes! Poor spelling is the main offender, but poor editing is my biggest bug. Some sentences don't make any sense, its like they have started to write one thing then changed their minds half way through!

A personal favourite of mine was when we signed Steven N'Zonzi.

"Blackburn's new 8 foot 6 midfielder....."

I was too young to really remember the Peter White days, but I suspect the standards where higher back then.

Anyone else see the "story" (not sure when, probably 1st, 2nd or 3rd Jan) about the lad and his 'rope trick'? It was a picture of some kid on one of those...not sure what they're called, but like a climbing frame made of rope. There was no written article, just a headline saying something like '(insert kid's name here)'s rope trick on New Years' or whatever. And a caption saying the kid was enjoying his New Years Day or something like that. Not only was it absolutely pathetic as a piece of news, especially with no written article to support it, but what I just couldn't figure out above all else is what 'rope trick' the headline was referring to. Infuriating "journalism" really. I actually wanted to be a reporter when I was younger, and got work experience at the LET. For various reasons, it put me off the profession for life. Their editing standards are appalling- they should hire a pedantic git like myself or various other members of this board to proof read for them.

[Andy]

Agree with that - the errors in spelling, grammar and page layout are pretty staggering at times, though that's absolutely not restricted to the LET.

How hard can it be to employ someone to check these things? It'd take a couple of minutes per page, tops.

In terms of content, LET have always had an excellent relationship with John Williams - I sat in on an interview they did with John Williams a couple of years ago and the amount of trust between JW and the reporters was amazing.

A number of potentially massive stories were giving 'off-camera' and they actually stayed that way.

They have been the mouthpiece of the club under the previous regime, but that's been a positive thing - they are usually the most accurate for Rovers news, in fairness and you often see their article appearing word-for-word on national websites/papers.

[mhead]

The difference of now from the 80s is that in Peter White we had someone who we ALL trusted 100%;we saw him at the Away matches....he was part of the resilient Army of fans that supported the team thru all the bad old days.His input to the LET sold papers and they knew that.

Sadly Peter would only just be retiring...he died far too soon. And of course even he might have been submerged by Sky Sports News and the over-analysis on here.

[RevidgeBlue]

I noticed yesterday the LT sniped at the new owners from behind the cover of a few anonymous articles.

Now we've had a positive result, will they proudly put the author's name at the top of every piece?

[philipl]

I don't think that was sniping.

The owners clearly have an enormous credibility crisis following two siblings saying diametrically opposite things about the biggest story to have emerged about Rovers in a very long time.

[JAL]

Peter White was a Rovers supporter and it showed now none of these guys at the Telegraph are Rovers supporters.

Plunkit is a Liverpol supporter, and Cryer is i'm told a Bristol City supporter and it shows. Then they are backed up by the annoying irratating little Bolton fan who always seems to want his say.

So dont be surprised when they start knocking Rovers.

[Mattyblue]

Andy Neild was a Rovers fan, I always thought he did the tough job replacing Peter White pretty well.

[deftangel]

Looking at Alexa, the Lancashire Telegraph is the 4,217th most visited website in the UK and is read by 0.004% of the UK's population of online users on peak days- I think that is about 12,000 unique daily visitors at peak with most of the current traffic looking at Rovers.

That sounds about right given the relative Alexa ranking and traffic of my employers.

For Norway however, the figures would have a much lower confidence level in my experience given the way data is collected via a browser plugin and how that jives with smaller numbers. So, the likelyhood that we've got a more significant supporter base in Scandanavia than say, France notwithstanding, don't read too much into it

[BuckyRover]

There is a link on their webite entitled:

"The Roumour Mill"

Says it all really (unless it's a bad pun, don't think it is)

[booth]

Peter White was a Rovers supporter and it showed now none of these guys at the Telegraph are Rovers supporters.

Plunkit is a Liverpol supporter, and Cryer is i'm told a Bristol City supporter and it shows. Then they are backed up by the annoying irratating little Bolton fan who always seems to want his say.

So dont be surprised when they start knocking Rovers.

Interesting. Peter White was a Rover through and through. And a very nice chap with it, he did an Interview for us at college.

What happened to Andy Neild?

[cmb211087]

My mate works under him at Viva Pr. Funny because he makes her right all the football stuff on their site and she hates football

[Simon Says]

What happened to Andy Neild?

I think he still involved with the club, working for PAPR.

[Darth Paul]

Hmmm I have noticed some almost word for word similarities in the LT match report for the Liverpool game with the report on the SkySports website which appeared the day before. The last couple of paragraphs in particular look very suspicious...something similar happened to me when I used to write for them...one of my submissions appeared rehashed under the name of someone not a million miles away from this post...and was quickly removed after I emailed the sports editor to ask why.

The 'P' word is a dirty one in writing circles...I hope I am wrong about our local rag...

[teddy]

bring back alf,if only,

[thenodrog]

I get the LET delivered everyday and as its my local paper I will support it, but the quality of journalism is poor.

There are so many mistakes! Poor spelling is the main offender, but poor editing is my biggest bug. Some sentences don't make any sense, its like they have started to write one thing then changed their minds half way through!

A personal favourite of mine was when we signed Steven N'Zonzi.

"Blackburn's new 8 foot 6 midfielder....."

I was too young to really remember the Peter White days, but I suspect the standards where higher back then.

The mistakes in the LT nowadays are embarrasing. It can only be down to two things. 1. Falling educational standards despite the garbage that we are spoon fed every August that evolution is actually moving faster than the speed of light as kids are increasing in intelligence every single year OR spell checker is breeding sloppiness and laziness.

Or more likely both.

[bazza]

I get the LET delivered everyday and as its my local paper I will support it, but the quality of journalism is poor.

There are so many mistakes! Poor spelling is the main offender, but poor editing is my biggest bug. Some sentences don't make any sense, its like they have started to write one thing then changed their minds half way through!

A personal favourite of mine was when we signed Steven N'Zonzi.

"Blackburn's new 8 foot 6 midfielder....."

I was too young to really remember the Peter White days, but I suspect the standards where higher back then.

I agree re the poor spelling and lack of proof reading and editing. Par for the course in most papers these days.

Peter White usually got all the players match ratings correct game after game. I told him so when I met him for the one and only time at Deepdale where Rovers Reserves were playing North End Reserves. He appreciated my comments and was glad for the feed-back. Excellent chap!

[BuckyRover]

The mistakes in the LT nowadays are embarrasing. It can only be down to two things. 1. Falling educational standards despite the garbage that we are spoon fed every August that evolution is actually moving faster than the speed of light as kids are increasing in intelligence every single year OR spell checker is breeding sloppiness and laziness.

Or more likely both.

Or all the clever journalists have left East Lancs?

[thenodrog]

Or all the clever journalists have left East Lancs?

I do get the impression that many of the reporters are very young, very naive, very careless and no doubt very cheap.

[Majiball]

They all do it.

From the BBC:

The sporting director for Bundesliga side Kaiserslautern was at Pittodrie on Saturday when Goodwillie's last-minute goal gave United a share of the points against Aberdeem.

My link

[SAS]

More I picked up this week.

Online now two articles next to each other, same article different headline.

In Thursday's paper article on page 3 about Carl Forgerty, was also repeated on page 14.

Is their actually an editor? Or was it purposely done to fill the paper?