When you are starting a movement, it helps to come up with a catchy slogan. Australian football fans discovered as much this week when their ‘Passion Is Not A Crime’ hashtag started trending on Twitter.
What started as a social media reaction to Channel Nine’s coverage of last week’s Sydney derby soon snowballed into genuine anger at the way football is treated by mainstream news outlets.
Nine’s Facebook page was inundated with hundreds of angry comments from fans exasperated by what they saw as biased coverage of the game.
There is even talk of fan groups uniting to chant “passion is not a crime” in the stands this weekend and displaying banners to that effect.
Nine’s report appeared to have had a totemic effect, galvanising fans to unite in condemnation of a style of reporting which has not changed since the days of the National Soccer League.
And Nine’s response, if you can call it that, suggests there’s a long way to go before these media outlets recognise the growing power of the A-League in this country.
But in acknowledging the outburst, the joke was almost on football fans.
“There have been angry responses to a football story we ran over the weekend. In response, our Facebook page has been flooded with “Passion is not a crime” messages,” read a post on Nine’s Facebook page.
“We take your feedback on board, so take a look at the original story here,” it added – and thus the cycle of angry posts, and more importantly click-throughs, happened all over again.
There seem to be several issues at work here.
Firstly, Channel Nine knows that aiming a ‘soccer violence’ story at its predominantly Baby Boomer demographic is an easy way to ensure ratings.
Don’t forget Nine is in a battle with its commercial rivals to win the six o’clock news timeslot, so mashing together a few titillating shots of chanting fans lobbing flares is generally a quick-fire way of getting easily outraged viewers to tune in.
The casually dismissive attitude to football fans’ anger also suggests Nine isn’t too concerned by the prospect of losing viewers who quite frankly have no reason to tune into the network in the first place.
That’s a risky tactic in an era of falling advertising rates but with Nine throwing all of its resources into retaining cricket and NRL broadcast rights, it’s not a surprising one.
However, the fact so many football fans actually watched the story practically proved Nine’s point for them.
Quite frankly, the network couldn’t care less whether you’re outraged by their reporting or not – so long as you watch it.
Nine’s commercial imperative is to win viewers, not Walkley Awards, and the same fans who saw nothing wrong with Les Murray instructing SBS staff not to criticise the World Cup bid are now screaming with rage at Nine’s right to exercise their own editorial policy.
Only they’re not really screaming at all.
They’re bashing away at keyboards, just like I’m doing now, and in many cases that’s as far as the protest will go.
In fact, if as many of these passionate supporters turned up in home ends at the weekend as were willing to leave comments on a Facebook page, the atmosphere inside the grounds would be second-to-none.
With any luck, the Nine backlash will help convince some of these supporters to step away from their keyboards and into an A-League home end.
Just as the late Johnny Warren’s “I Told You So” encouraged fans to throw their support behind the national team, so too might “Passion Is Not A Crime” become the rallying call to unite A-League fans.
But if football fans really want to make a point, they should turn up at a venue. And they can do one more thing en masse.
Turn off Channel Nine.
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
40 people evicted from the Boxing Day Cricket Test match. Channel 9 reports this as "to be expected"; VicPol says "crowd was well-behaved". Can you imagine the venomous media attacks, if 40 fans were evicted from a football match?
Passionate Supporter
Guest
The way I see it, football is leading the way against illegal activities. 2009 Boxing Day Test - Day 2 - 91 evictions and 13 arrests from crowd of 59,206. 1 in 570 evicted or arrested. 2009 ODI (Melbourne) - 154 evictions or arrests from crowd of 40,000. 1 in 259 people evicted or arrested. 2012 NRL Grand Final - 43 evictions from crowd of 83,000. 1 in 1,930 evicted. This number was praised by the police in the media after the event. 2012 Sydney Derby - 3 arrests from a crowd of 26,176. That's 1 in 8,725 evicted or arrested. http://www.westsydneyfootball.com/topic/2950-passionisnotacrime-post-derby-media-bias/
Damiano
Guest
^ I've been edited above. I made the point it was the first decent article I thought he'd written in a long time. This makes me look like I'm on the Tuckerman bandwagon, if one exist, and I'm not. I think he's marginally better than Jesse Fink
WSW Gossoccer
Guest
"But if football fans really want to make a point, they should turn up at a venue. And they can do one more thing en masse." "Turn off Channel Nine." Love the final 2 sentences great way to end the article
Cpaaa
Guest
Merry Christmas Mid and take care over the holidays. Perfect way to describe the Fuss " the attack dog that defends". Looking forward to the Mariners Doco, certain Premiers once again,but there is just one thing ..you know a grand final cant be won.;o)
Dublin Dave
Guest
Passion is not a crime but the standard of sub editing on the Channel Nine Facebook page, and its video links, certainly is. Couldn't help noticing an outraged story about a Ukrainian-born Jewish lady called Mila Kunis who, Channel 9 says, was the subject of an "Anti Semantic rant". Seems like Channel 9's journos are the greater threat to semantics. If you see what I mean. :)
Jon stevens
Guest
Just boycott 9 & 7. It really works. U don't have to put up with the neg. by the way WSW are on fire. Crowd sounds awesome too
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
NRL club, Parramatta Eels have jumped on board & are out supporting the WSW lads tonight. Just in on Twitter @tim_mannah: @Mel_Mclaughlin @wswanderersfc our boys are on the Wanderers bandwagon tonight! #WesternSydneyBrothers https://twitter.com/tim_mannah/status/282035099787202561/photo/1
The Bear
Guest
Obviously, option 3 is a sticking point for some fans. Until these folks realise it's objectionable to their other fan-mates (asthma sufferers in particular)...not a lot will change except give police and FFA extra work to do...instead of arresting more worthwhile cretins, with more efficiency.
The Bear
Guest
yep...or should i say..YES!
The Bear
Guest
Hah ha. Middie gate crashes and slips in yet another CCM fluff piece ; ) In all seriousness, it's awesome that you're still with us here. In fact we need more level headed (yet Passionate) folks like you around...
Brick Tamlin of the Pants Party
Guest
This is great and good to see fans making a stand but us football fans need to tow the line as well.We know that flares are always going bring unwanted attention,they aren't crucial to a fantastic atmosphere at all so lets leave em at home shall we.On the flipside certain sections of the media need stop labelling certain activities as hooliganism, 1.A group walking down the street singing and chanting is not hooliganism 2.A couple of arrests at a football match does not equal hooliganism and if it does than any arrrests/evictions at NRL,AFL and Cricket games should be labelled i the same way. 3.If a flare is lit it doesn't equal hooliganism,it is foolish and unessecary but not hooliganism. All we want is fair reporting.
The Kebab Connoisseur
Guest
The only time I watch Ch 9 is for the cricket. Nothing else on there interests me. It is basically 3AW with pictures. Their ratings says a lot about Australians viewing habits and our "education system" that they can dish up what they show us and people still watch it. I guess the film Idiocracy has come true in Oz.
Bondy.
Guest
Fussball. The hooligan wants a wife ; are there auditions for that at all ! . I thought they had a similar show..
MV Dave
Guest
Exactly...thanks Punter and Adam.
MV Dave
Guest
Gold, Jerry, Gold!
MV Dave
Guest
Thanks Mid Merry Xmas to ya and yer family and to all on this site. Sounds like you'll be having a great break for the holidays...enjoy. Lets all hope Melbourne Victory return to their rightful position as Champions and Premiers in 2013. :)
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
Thanks, Middy - will check it out. Also, on Twitter, football fans have gone beserk "taking the urine" out of Channel 9, coming up with possible SOCKAH shows for Channel 9, using the #channel9soccershows. Over 500 shows have been suggested, including: "A Current AFlare" (suggested by The Roar's own, Tony Tannous!) "Hey Hey It's Kick Soccer Day" "Australia's Next Top Hooligan" "The Hooligan Wants a Wife" "Carols by Flarelight" "60 minutes of flares" "The Big Flare Theory" "The Football DeGenerates show" "Who wants to be a Flare Thrower" "Nine's Wide World of Bias" "Two & a half arrests" "The Farmer Wants a Flare" "The Young & the Flare-less" "Ethnics Roadshow" "Hooligan Island" "Hooligan's Heroes" Log into Twitter & join us in lampooning Chanel 9's football bigotry .. over 500 suggestions so far, in just 4 hours!
Midfielder
Guest
FUSS ... you will love this... suggest everyone read it .... Click on the MV forum link provided hopefully you will land on page 228 .. you could log in to page one ... if you do go to the current last page ie. 228 ... Scroll down and look for the post by a poster called ... RobyB ... brilliant ... also look to a post before by MVTID ... very smart by the MV forum mod... http://www.melbournevictory.net/forum/showthread.php?52147-Smell-that-It-s-fear.../page228
Punter
Guest
Mid, glad all is well, love your posts. Merry Christmas & a wonderful new Year. To all the football fans & football writers, wishing you are the best for this festive season & plenty of football good will, unless you are playing Sydney FC or Derby. May Football continue to take big strides in the New Year. To all our AFL and other sports fans who visit our thread here, all the best as well for Christmas & look out in the New Year, 'we are Football'. Love to all & their families.