#PassionIsNotACrime - Post-Derby Media Bias

Opinion: In the wake of the Sydney Derby, Australian Football has once again been dragged through the mud by the mainstream media in this country.

After the 2-0 defeat of Sydney FC by the Wanderers we have witnessed two completely different reactions to the Sydney Derby and crowd issues. Without an agenda, print journalists, many of whom actually attended the match praised the supporters for the atmosphere they brought to the game. As did people outside the media who attended the match. On the other we have agenda-driven television media outlets who reported on an extremely small element of the supporters with exaggerated hyperbole and false statements.

Daniel Lane, who I believe stood with the RBB for the Derby, wrote this article:

Wanderers Fans Full Of Passion Not Anger:

The sub-plot - the battle in the terraces, where the key to victory was to chant louder than the rival team's supporters - was action-packed and colourful.

Phil Rothfield, who either attended or at least watched the Derby on TV, posted this article:

Red and black wave swamps the west as Wanderers continue remarkable rise.

This A-League club is truly one of the most remarkable success stories in Australian sport... Normally it takes years and years to build a successful football club in any code.

Not so the TV Media. They were looking for any pictures or videos they could use to paint football supporters as violent, ethnic hooligans wanting nothing more than to start a soccer riot.

@MatthewSnelson - Reporter, Nine News.

Anyone at the Sydney A-league game last night? Do you know if anyone has vision of the flares?

Unsuprisingly, this lead to the report on the match being called "Trouble Flares at Sydney Derby." (Link to NineMSN website with video).

Extraordinary scenes. Dangerous flares thrown into the crowd. Flares, detonators, a brawl and arrests. A group intent on violence and crime. Trouble went over 2 hours.

On the main channel 9 news this was made the second report of the bulletin, behind the USA Newtown gun massacre. The idea that flares were thrown into the crowd is simply not true. That would be a reprehensibly dangerous action that I believe only someone deliberately intending to cause injury would do. They were thrown onto the pitch, or taken by security to pick up and dispose of. Nor did any brawl take place at the stadium during the so called 'two hours of trouble.'

A police officer is quoted saying "We're not going to see what we see in parts of Europe". I have to question exactly what in Europe is and isn't allowed according to the Police, because he makes no details. Simply that he wants it not to be seen. Football support in Europe encompasses a wide range of issues and this kind of blanket statement is not helpful at all.

According to the voice over, "We already have been". It then shows several scenes from RBB videos. The first shows grainy footage of a flare let off at a private supporters function.

The next was video of the RBB chanting during a match. What this has to do with hooliganism is beyond me. The Mariners fans chant during matches, the Barmy Army chant during England Cricket matches, I stood at the top of the ANZ stadium wings at a State Of Origin match where the entire stadium was chanting "Bullshit" and "The Ref is a Wanker" whenever the Blues got a bad call. I doubt any of those groups have ever been linked with 'hooliganism'.

The final part is the most reprehensible part of the report for me. It shows one of the RBB's perfectly legal, completely safe, pre-game marches. It was likely one of the marches which had the additional legal backing of being documented to the police through a "Intention To Hold A Public Assembly" notice under the Summary Offences Act of 1988. Vision of an RBB pre-game march included the voice over "and last month, a fan march in Western Sydney!", the tone being incredulous, accusatory, implying that this march was somehow violent, illegal, overly disruptive or an example of hooliganism.

So who might you ask, was reporting this? Someone who attended the match and witnessed it first hand like a responsible journalist would? No, it was our twitter friend, Matthew Snelson. It appears like he had already made up his mind without having attended the event and proceeded to file a biased, incorrect report after doing the hard journalistic yakka of searching for videos on youtube. Apparently this is what you learn in Reporter School these days. I wonder how he dealt with the new youtube interface. Meanwhile the big bosses wonder why their media empires are crumbling and falling apart piece by piece as people take to social media, internet forums, blogs and other websites for their dose of news.

Channel 7 also filed a report on the match.

To me, what Robert Ovadia mentions in his first line is the root cause of this biased attempt at journalism.

With the rise of the A-League, we are witnessing a rise in hooliganism as well.

This yet again shows youtube video from the stands, but also mixes in video from Fox Sports showing the RBB celebrating during the match, clearly implying that the celebrations were due to the flares. It also makes an incorrect statement about 'railway detonators'. With even the smallest piece of journalistic integrity, Mr Ovadia would have researched what it takes to let off a railway detonator and what that would have done if it exploded in a crowd. They require high force such as being struck with a hammer when they aren't used for the intended purpose of going under a train. The explosion is big enough to cause serious injuries such as amputation or death. If a railway detonator was in fact let off during the crowd people would have been hurt and I would be personally disgusted at anyone who brought such a device into our group.

The policeman is shown again but this time he completes his quote about Europe. He is the one who mentions detonators being 'common practice' in Europe. He does not say they were used at the Derby. We can now see why "detonators" were included in the report, while using the weasel word "possibly" to cover himself from being called out for his incorrect reporting.

The final piece of vision is from our Derby march. It includes the severe hooligan element of a young woman with a broken foot on crutches. The voice over states:

Before the game Wanderers fans marched on a hotel in Surry Hills and started a brawl there.

Both these statements are incorrect. We did not 'march on a hotel', we were directed by police via their blocking of streets on a particular route that took us past a hotel. This route was not the route originally intended by the club and supporters which was a route that would have avoided the hotel completely. When we arrived the Police had unilaterally changed the route to the new one. The RBB did not start a brawl there either from what I could see in the march. Statements about broken chairs at the stadium are meaningless. Chairs are broken at every event by simple wear and tear. Some were already broken when supporters arrived at the stadium and what I saw was only a handful of seats broken at all. To suggest this was part of a concentrated effort of hooliganism is another incorrect statement

Did these events deserve to be called 'hooliganism'? Were they deserving of being reported as 'extraordinary scenes'? Our forum member Kensworth pulled up some numbers on recent major events and their eviction rate. At many of these major events an eviction is the same as an arrest for the police, as the difference might only be what the officer at the time decides and in many cases an arrest may lead to a simple caution or even being released and told to go home. Stats involving events like these can be hard to come by hence why some are years old.

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.

That is 4 and a half times lower than the NRL Grand Final that was praised by police. It's 33 times lower than the MCG ODI figure. Yet police accuse Football supporters of 'intending violence'. I would stake money on the belief that more people were hurt by violence at either of the Melbourne Cricket matches than were at the Sydney Derby.

Here is a report on poor behaviour at an AFL match by Corey Stephenson.

Time to split up AFL fans?

Only so many times you can hear someone next to you scream the words "you f---ing maggot!" before losing it... Family with young children all trying to focus on the game rather than worry about whether some abusive idiot is going to add to a heated rant by launching the beer they’ve just smuggled into the alcohol-free zone... There were individuals actually beckoning people for a fight, while others repeatedly yelled "shut the f--- up" and "learn the f---ing rules" in front of terrified kids.

The AFL supporters are all considered "individuals", while Football supporters are lumped into categories like "A group intent on violence". Flares are let off by supporters of South Australia's Central Districts AFL club,

Why is this route taken by the TV media with Football, but not with AFL and NRL matches? Inherent racism in the Eastern Suburbs based, Anglo-centric mainstream media is only part of the issue. That has lost some focus through the introduction of broad-based teams with a focus on an area or town instead of ethnicity. What is clear is how much vested interest Channel 9 and 7 have in attempting to delay the rise or to destroy Football.

We know for a fact that Channel 7 buried the NSL for the benefit of the AFL. C7 executive Steve Wise was annoyed that the AFL hadn't given him credit for buying the NSL rights then suffocating the sport.

Both channels recent confirmed they will spend 100's of millions of dollars each for the rights to NRL and AFL. Channel 9 also has Cricket to protect. Channel 10 made plays for both sports, for the A-League, and will likely attempt to secure the Big Bash League for FTA viewing the next time the media rights are put up for sale by Cricket Australia. It's hard to write more than a paragraph on this ingrained anti-football bias. Because it's so blatant, it's so obvious and so clear why football is targeted.

Football has yet again activated the 'fight or flight' response of the AFL and NRL driven agenda of the mainstream television media. They are fearful of our potential power. Our sport is no longer a 'sleeping giant'. We have taken over from Rugby Union as the 3rd most popular football code in the country. Right now the Australian Cricket Team is playing in front of woeful crowds in recent Test series, and the Big Bash League is finding the novelty of an ultra-plastic 6 week long circus where the spectacle counts more than the result is very very short. Our Sydney Derby scored 26,000 attendees. The Big Bash Sydney Derby had 15,000.

9, 7 and 10 are reacting to protect their investment and 10 future investments. While flare throwing is not a good look, the response from these media networks is well out of proportion to the reality of the situation. It is out of proportion to their coverage of heavier levels of violence, racism, ejections and drunken behaviour, and even flare usage, at non-Football matches. The fearful voice overs superimposed onto youtube video, all intended to promote the vision that the Wanderers supporters are ethnic hooligans invading the Eastern Suburbs intent on destruction is pure fantasy designed to anger, shock and worry those who might otherwise want to attend and A-League match. It is akin to the 'shonky builder' ambush reporting style used in A Current Affair or Today Tonight.

I am heartened that our supporter group, and those fellow supporters from other clubs are joining us to directly protest this via social media. The Channel 9 facebook has been flooded with complaints. I hope the same has happened to Channel 7. Channel 10 is as relevant as Mohammed Bin Hammam is after his FIFA ban but perhaps take a few moments out to remind them they've got nothing worth watching except 20 year old Simpsons re-runs. Throw in a line that with the status of the A-League rising they should have chased us harder than SBS and Foxtel did and if they did people might watch their station instead of it failing and dropping down to become Australia's fourth most popular network.

To anyone who is a part of the great active supporter groups throughout Football in Australia, no matter what league the team you support is in, we all need to consider our actions as we head out to matches this weekend, next weekend, next year and forever. While media coverage is biased there is only so much that a biased reporter can fabricate when there is nothing untoward to report on. If we take that content out of their hands. We are the better people in this matter. Throwing a target on our backs for Channel 9 and 7 to aim at will not help Football. We all know what the limits between passion and illegal behaviour are. Stay passionate, but as a collective know what the limits on our passion are if we want to avoid giving these media outlets ammunition against us.

Passion is not a crime.

We are Football and we will prevail.