Michael Ndiweni Misquoted: Why The Media Must Do More to Protect Young Players

Michael Ndiweni Misquoted: Why The Media Must Do More to Protect Young Players

Football Blog

Michael Ndiweni Misquoted: Why The Media Must Do More to Protect Young Players

The prominence of the media within the modern remit of football is bordering on invasive.

Broadcasters are employing tactics to further entrench themselves in the behind-the-scenes culture, and media outlets are conducting intrusive interviews with players, which address everything from on-field performances to private life ongoings, at a rate which resembles clockwork.

Add in the incessant nature of social media and the heightened probability of virality that comes with it, and the power of those who supply us with coverage of the beautiful game is in many ways frightening.

As the saying goes (all thanks to Spiderman for this one): "With great power comes great responsibility." - and in theory, that should also be the case for the media.

Yet, we repeatedly see those tasked with correctly relaying stories to the general public let down both fans and, more importantly, players themselves.

Whether it be lousy journalism which incorrectly displays information, opinions which are quite frankly made purely to drum up as much chaos and controversy as possible, or players whose kindness to provide interviews is grossly taken advantage of purely for personal gain – football media has been creating more problems than it solves for some time now.

And it is the latter of those three evils which will be used as the subject for this, likely scathing, article.


Michael Ndiweni: The Case Study

The substance behind this piece comes from an article released earlier in the week by the Chronicle, a local Northeast-based newspaper, which centred around an interview conducted with former Newcastle youngster Michael Ndiweni.

Michael was released by the club at the back end of last season before dropping into non-league to regain some confidence and this summer jetting off to America to attend university on a football scholarship.

His story is one of great substance and meaning, one which any media outlet would understandably be delighted to get their hands on – especially with an in-depth interview to accompany it.

But rather than the respectful, insightful manner which would have befitted the story, the Chronicle platformed it under what was essentially false pretences with the title detailing a quote which Ndiweni never actually said.

The title read (the quote marks are real): 'Newcastle binned me after my Premier League debut – now I'm rebuilding my career in America.'

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Conveniently, following Michael publicly (and rightly) calling out the false information on his Instagram, the Chronicle has changed the title to something which doesn't include untrue quotes – unfortunately for them, that doesn't mean they get away with it…

Now, granted, this article hasn't been formulated purely to call out the Chronicle's mistake – after all, making them does come with the territory of being a big media outlet, and they get criticised more than those less in the spotlight.

And, whilst the correction of the mistake is applaudable, the fact it was made in the first place says a lot about the carelessness of the media space.


More Must Be Done

The British media has a track record of villainising players, and while Michael's case doesn't exactly qualify as villainising, it is the negative light it portrays him in which could have had drastic consequences if it landed in the wrong hands.

On a more nationwide scale, take Jude Bellingham as an example.

A young, extremely talented footballer with bags of personality who is repeatedly torn down and condemned for his actions whenever they aren't subjectively deemed to be acceptable.