Rumour: Dildo

[Geekins]

[The Reverend]

with a bit of luck he has been given his marching orders, terrible articles, terrible reporting and so many basic mistakes.

this article for instance, http://www.getreading.co.uk/sport/footb ... m-12522369 comments at the bottom tearing him a new one.

These comments?

This first sentance

grammatical mistakes... charles watts! ...You need to act quickly trinity mirror....

Trolled by a f*ckwit. Big deal

[genome]

with a bit of luck he has been given his marching orders, terrible articles, terrible reporting and so many basic mistakes.

this article for instance, http://www.getreading.co.uk/sport/footb ... m-12522369 comments at the bottom tearing him a new one.

These comments?

This first sentance

grammatical mistakes... charles watts! ...You need to act quickly trinity mirror....

Trolled by a f*ckwit. Big deal

Hi Jonathan!

[NewCorkSeth]

Everything he does is right out of the top drawer. Damn I wish he was a real player now..

When he gets in the box he runs rampant. These are endless.

[paultheroyal]

This beautifully sums up Mr Low's first month in charge

[Royal Ginger]

This 'mare isn't going away from him. A quick google has found this story listed on a variety of other teams fan's forums and I've very quickly found the story reported in Hungarian and Romanian.

http://www.origo.hu/sport/focivilag/201 ... enisz.html

http://www.gsp.ro/fotbal/liga-1/farsa-a ... 00720.html

That's a bad day at the office.

[RustyRoyal]

This 'mare isn't going away from him. A quick google has found this story listed on a variety of other teams fan's forums and I've very quickly found the story reported in Hungarian and Romanian.

http://www.origo.hu/sport/focivilag/201 ... enisz.html

http://www.gsp.ro/fotbal/liga-1/farsa-a ... 00720.html

That's a bad day at the office.

3000+ upvotes on Reddit as well. Second most upvoted r/soccer post on deadline day behind Luiz's free kick.

[genome]

This beautifully sums up Mr Low's first month in charge

In case you missed it, he retweeted a fake account announcing Bogle signing for Leeds as well, since deleted.

[Wimb]

Not his finest hour(s), though he's far from the first journalist to jump too quickly on something from social media. Sadly the demand for instant content and plenty of it has eroded the time those in the media get to double and triple check these things. Not an excuse for the 'cock' up, he held his hands up straight away saying he'd been had, but it's not the worst thing I've seen.

Feel slightly sorry for the chap, he's taken on a role at short notice for an organisation that's shrinking all the time. He's probably still having to do all the jobs he did before for the same money and cover a team he's not really overly bothered with (as a Pompey fan anyway).

Don't forget he either A) didn't get the job or B) didn't want it, after Jonny Fordham left and that's how we ended up with Mr Watts, whose talent has rightly seen him move on to bigger things. Problem is Charles got the job during the Reading Post era, I'm not sure how many people are going to be lining up to take on that role now it's an online only site, whose ability to attract talent will be massively impacted by a shrinking budget.

Even if someone good does come along, the chances of them wanting to stay in the role long-term (if it even exists long-term) are going to be small.

[One8Seven1*]

Get Reading actually ARE running it.

Jonathan Low really is a class a dipstick, but he at least took it on the chin and said it wasn't his finest day. Lots of press running with this today as well, just to rub it in.

[Hound]

IN terms of sympathy - I'm a little short on it to be honest. Surely you would at least quickly put a name like that into google before posting it on the paper website - would take all of 5 seconds to do so.

And whilst he might have not asked for the job initially, he must have known for a month or so before CW left. And lets face it, its not a bad gig is it? Probably not the best paying, but still enough to put a bit of effort in and not make the kind of basic errors and lack of any kind of information in his reports. Its harsh, but an enthusiastic school boy could put together better articles than he has so far,

[CountryRoyal]

He's a tool and I hope he feels like the right muppet he is.

Probably a lovely bloke, just thoroughly unprepared and incompetent for the seemingly simple job at hand.

[Wimb]

IN terms of sympathy - I'm a little short on it to be honest. Surely you would at least quickly put a name like that into google before posting it on the paper website - would take all of 5 seconds to do so.

And whilst he might have not asked for the job initially, he must have known for a month or so before CW left. And lets face it, its not a bad gig is it? Probably not the best paying, but still enough to put a bit of effort in and not make the kind of basic errors and lack of any kind of information in his reports. Its harsh, but an enthusiastic school boy could put together better articles than he has so far,

I'm not sure he even had that much notice tbh, though you're right it doesn't excuse basic and simple errors.

As for being a good or a bad gig, I don't think it's as fun as it used to be. You've got to churn out as much content as you can to get clicks, while having barely any time to write proper editorials or do any sort of real journalism. On top of that you're in a society now where people want stuff reported on 24/7 and so when can you switch off? Even 10 years ago you could hold stuff back for the morning's paper, or a midweek pullout etc, now it has to be up instantly or you'll lose your readership.

From my own experience having run TTE for nearly six years, it's sometimes really disheartening to see an article you know has taken someone hours of research and planning only get a fraction of the clicks you get for reporting a vague transfer rumour. Fortunately we're not under any massive pressure to clock up the click numbers so we try and to do it all but I can understand why proper journalism is getting buried beneath a mountain of memes, speculation and hot takes, especially for a commercial enterprise like GR.

[Sutekh]

IN terms of sympathy - I'm a little short on it to be honest. Surely you would at least quickly put a name like that into google before posting it on the paper website - would take all of 5 seconds to do so.

And whilst he might have not asked for the job initially, he must have known for a month or so before CW left. And lets face it, its not a bad gig is it? Probably not the best paying, but still enough to put a bit of effort in and not make the kind of basic errors and lack of any kind of information in his reports. Its harsh, but an enthusiastic school boy could put together better articles than he has so far,

I'm not sure he even had that much notice tbh, though you're right it doesn't excuse basic and simple errors.

As for being a good or a bad gig, I don't think it's as fun as it used to be. You've got to churn out as much content as you can to get clicks, while having barely any time to write proper editorials or do any sort of real journalism. On top of that you're in a society now where people want stuff reported on 24/7 and so when can you switch off? Even 10 years ago you could hold stuff back for the morning's paper, or a midweek pullout etc, now it has to be up instantly or you'll lose your readership.

From my own experience having run TTE for nearly six years, it's sometimes really disheartening to see an article you know has taken someone hours of research and planning only get a fraction of the clicks you get for reporting a vague transfer rumour. Fortunately we're not under any massive pressure to clock up the click numbers so we try and to do it all but I can understand why proper journalism is getting buried beneath a mountain of memes, speculation and hot takes, especially for a commercial enterprise like GR.

Agreed, the internet really does kill proper journalism particularly if the site you work for is solely driven on clicks on/to their website. You're forced to report what basically amounts to total cr@p and non-stories (just like SSN) nearly all the time just to maintain freshness.

In every single profession it should be quality over quantity. Rather one well written report a day than several meaningless poorly driven "splats" just to get people to keep checking back for that one gem in a million when it does appear. Remember the world isn't (and things aren't) better just because technology improves what is possible.

[Wimb]

Agreed, the internet really does kill proper journalism particularly if the site you work for is solely driven on clicks on/to their website. You're forced to report what basically amounts to total cr@p and non-stories (just like SSN) nearly all the time just to maintain freshness.

In every single profession it should be quality over quantity. Rather one well written report a day than several meaningless poorly driven "splats" just to get people to keep checking back for that one gem in a million when it does appear. Remember the world isn't (and things aren't) better just because technology improves what is possible.

I think it's about trying to get balance, but finding a revenue model that allows you to do both is really tricky and one that most sites haven't really got right yet. We rely on volunteers and passion to get us by, there's no real financial incentive to keep going. Even through the generosity of crowdfunding and support we get from the SB Nation network, we probably break even over the year when you take buying equipment, website subscriptions and various malarkey like that.

I just don't think Reading are a big enough club to support a website on their own, the fanbase and potential readership just isn't there right now. Go back up and that could change in a hurry though!

Interestingly I wonder how many fans would pay £5 a year to hire a full-time Reading journo? If you had 10,000 doing that you'd easily pay for a post. Again, I think too many people just magically expect people to produce high quality work and journalism without actually paying for it.

[muirinho]

I think too many people just magically expect people to produce high quality work and journalism without actually paying for it.

And this right here is the problem. You get what you pay for.

[Norfolk Royal]

I think too many people just magically expect people to produce high quality work and journalism without actually paying for it.

And this right here is the problem. You get what you pay for.

Or rather you get what you don't pay for.

[CountryRoyal]

I think too many people just magically expect people to produce high quality work and journalism without actually paying for it.

And this right here is the problem. You get what you pay for.

Or rather you get what you don't pay for.

Or rather you don't get what you don't pay for.

[Hound]

There is more to it than just getting clicks on a particular story though. I understand the need to print BS stories with headlines like 'See what Stam has to say about ....' to entice someone to click in, but if you want regular traffic you have to balance that with journalism that people will come back and read.

Thought Watts had it about right, that you knew some stories would be non-stories repeating old quotes, but you could put up with them because he would also contribute a couple of relatively interesting opinion pieces or reasonably insightful reports. Some of his reporting from the pre-season has proven to be pretty much spot on, with him highlighting Kelly as having a big role to play, and the comments on the team spirit which have come to fruition, and that helped you trust what he had to say.

Due to getting that balance he has got the chance to move on to something potentially better for him - Low's journalism, nice guy or not, is substandard and imo incredibly lazy, and will simply drive people away from looking at the site. I know for a fact I check the site an awful lot less than I did, and Im sure Im not the only one.