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The AFL media is so biased that they are “brainwashing” the public, according to struggling Carlton recruit Dale Thomas.
The former Collingwood star made this claim on the weekend, just one round after a similarly underperforming player, North Melbourne’s Drew Petrie, lambasted allegedly bitter former players who now work in the media.
Thomas suggested on TV he was appalled at the way the football media was reporting on Carlton’s struggles after they stumbled to a 2-4 start to the season.
“With the media the way they are at the minute some of the reports that come out are just so one-sided and biased in a fact that it’s almost brainwashing the general public into believing things that aren’t true,” he said.
“The only way you can answer the critics and to kind of shut the media up is by how you perform and fortunately for us the last two weeks we’ve put in some pretty good performances. People are starting to realise there’s a lot more upside [in our team] than what they may have said two or three weeks ago.”
Granted, very few humans enjoy being the subject of criticism, let alone in the public sphere. But some professions involve natural public scrutiny. If you choose to become a politician, actor or athlete, for example, you do so in the knowledge that your performance will be analysed regularly in the media.
As a journalist you have a similar understanding. When you put your name to a story you expect and receive feedback, not all of which is positive. The comments on The Roar illustrate this well.
Both Thomas and his new team have under-performed this season. Carlton are 16th on the ladder despite recruiting the Collingwood playmaker on huge money in the off season, the kind of move which suggested they believed they were in reach of a grand final berth. The firing of club legend Brett Ratten to be replaced by veteran coach Mick Malthouse the previous off-season was another strong signal the Blues thought their premiership window was ajar.
Yet their 2014 campaign has been so disastrous that Malthouse conceded on the weekend they were now essentially moving into a rebuilding phase. Accordingly, Carlton and Thomas have been receiving less-than-glowing appraisals in the press. What else would they expect?
Were Thomas dominating, instead of labouring, and the Blues in the top four, rather than the bottom four, they would undoubtedly be getting widespread plaudits. That is the nature of the beast.
Meanwhile, Petrie sought to denigrate former champion Essendon forward Matthew Lloyd, who is now a measured and respected AFL journalist. Lloyd made the observation that age may have caught up with the Kangaroos key forward, who turns 32 soon, and is “struggling for pace”.
He said Petrie had been a “great player for a long time” but his best footy may be in the past. It was a fair comment. Petrie has often looked behind the game this season and, statistically, is well down on his output from recent years. He has kicked just six goals in seven games, including only one across the three matches his side has lost.
Lloyd was speaking from experience too, having retired at the age of 31 following a career as a key forward which was similar in length to Petrie’s. He has admitted that beyond the age of 30 he couldn’t keep up with the pace of AFL.
Petrie responded to Lloyd’s balanced statements by saying there were “far too many old players employed trying to keep a job in footy making rash comments”.
That was an emotional reaction, but is there any truth to it Roarers? Is the AFL media too often unbalanced in their reporting?
Do you enjoy the increasingly diverse range of opinions offered up by football reporters each week or does it grate on you, as it clearly does for Thomas and Petrie?
I relish it, but as a professional journalist, I may be a shade biased.