Newcastle Are Creating More Problems by Banning Local Press

Another week, another couple of local papers banned for displeasing the clubs they cover.

The Newcastle Chronicle, the Journal and the Sunday Sun have been told they are not welcome at St James's Park after they repeatedly reported on protest marches against Mike Ashley and the way Newcastle United is being run.

Meanwhile, Port Vale have banned local paper the Sentinel because the club's hierarchy similarly disapproved of how they were covered.

After their ban was confirmed, the Chronicle published the email they were sent, informing them of the ban. It said:

"

It is quite frankly staggering that you devoted 15 full pages, including two front page splashes, a back page, three double-page spreads and a remarkable six full pages in one (September 7) in The Chronicle to a protest march which ultimately was attended by approximately 300 supporters. Even if the 1,000 supporters expected by the organisers had marched your coverage would have been disproportionate.

Given the turnout was significantly less than this, in fact only just over a quarter of that anticipated, something your coverage following the march failed to reference or reflect whatsoever, you should be in no doubt as to the strength of feeling that exists within the club in relation to your coverage.

"

The Port Vale case is slightly different in that the banned paper presented the image of a wronged party, banned simply for asking awkward questions.

Port Vale's chairman Norman Smurthwaite disagreed, saying that the paper reported information that he had given in confidence and was not intended for publication. If that's true, it's easier to see why the club was upset.

Whether or not it is the club's place to decide what an independent newspaper should cover, and how, it's clear that many people simply do not care about this sort of thing.

Many seem to take the view that they get whatever information they need from either the club directly or from the assorted forms of "new" media available to everyone these days. It's a flawed but understandable argument, and it's undeniable that the level of interest in this sort of thing is much higher in the wider media than it is with the general public.

However, it's difficult to see why clubs, Newcastle in particular, take such a step. Whether or not the club believes the Chronicle's coverage of the fan marches was proportionate or not, they must know that banning the papers is counter-productive.

They were unhappy that the coverage provided bad publicity for Newcastle by presenting the image of a mutinous public when, in the wider scheme of things, not that many of the public may have been mutinous.

By issuing this ban, they have simply multiplied the bad publicity, given that the fan marches in question were not that widely reported by the national media but then were once the wider press started to report the bans.

It was reminiscent of the "McLibel" case, in which McDonald's sued a tiny group called London Greenpeace for defamation over a pamphlet initially read by approximately nine people.

Of course, once this multi-national enormo-corporation kicked up a stink about it, many more people became aware of the protesters. In trying to restrict attention to what they said were damaging claims, they actually increased it.

The coverage by local papers can be, without question, irritating for clubs. However, even if they think these papers are damaging to the club, choosing to ban them, and the associated aggravation a ban causes, is even more damaging.