Marc Iles

I've been critical of him in the past and no doubt I will in the future but fair play to him for his splendid efforts today.

It's been a full and traumatic day saddened with the news of the death of Eddie Davies this evening but he's been working all day first to bring us news that there may be a deal in the offing, then one had been agreed and a new noon deadline had been set, then the delay as to whether it had been accepted, monies had cleared, twelve point penalty going to be imposed, etc, etc, and finally we thought why no official announcement of things had been made yet - Marc believing that the EFL has told the club to tidy up a few things like the bonuses and Heathcote.

Just when you thought he'd earned a rest from the informative blog he ran all day came news of the untimely death of Eddie and the need for Iles to write a tribute for him (remember Iles admits Davies never viewed him in particularly friendly terms) which he did so in a tender and reverential way that was one of his best articles I've read from him in quite some time.

Even as I post this Iles has just filed his copy of his take on the day.

I know he gets ridiculed (and rightly so) for missing a crucial match to paint his kids bedroom a season or two back but he's shown himself to be outstanding today and deserving of credit from the likes of myself.

Yes he has been very good today, far better than any other news source.I read some obsessed moron on another site complaining that Marc Iles shouldn't have taken a holiday during a week Bolton had a match the other week.Well, if he had saved his holiday for the international fortnight we wouldn't have had his expertise today!

Growler wrote:Yes he has been very good today, far better than any other news source.I read some obsessed moron on another site complaining that Marc Iles shouldn't have taken a holiday during a week Bolton had a match the other week.Well, if he had saved his holiday for the international fortnight we wouldn't have had his expertise today!

To be fair he's got kids and probably isn't paid a fortune plus he has to work around the school holidays and probably is the reason why he's in this last week and this, even though we don't have any games on, and would have be an opportune time for him to have a break from work.

I am a little bit surprised at the timing of some of his holidays considering what his job is but at the end of the day his family should always come first.

I've just finished reading his work and find myself in complete agreement. This is definitely one of his finer moments as the BN's reporter on BWFC.

I never had a problem with him in the first place. He's just a reporter and he does a job.

wanderlust wrote:I never had a problem with him in the first place. He's just a reporter and he does a job.

Not as well as he should lusty. In my opinion he's been too openly partisan towards the ST and too openly anti-Ken on too many occasions to be seen as impartial. He made that same mistake with Phil Gartside too if you recall. While I'm all in favour of a journalist's freedom to ask any question he/she wants they have to remain impartial and unbiased when publishing articles. Iles is far from alone in the current trend of reporters printing what they think was said between the lines instead of just reporting the actual words used.

By all means have an opinion piece somewhere if you think it's warranted but make it clear that it's an opinion, not to be confused with actual facts. Right now if Ken said "The sun will almost certainly come up tomorrow" Iles would likely report "Bolton Chairman says world may end tonight".

The shame is I've actually had a couple of fairly intelligent e-mail conversations with Marc Iles and while I can't claim to know him I do think I can say he isn't helping himself by trusting the ST. He's got almost zero lines of communication into the club itself now but the ST knows no more than we do about what's really going on there no matter how much they might wish to believe otherwise. If I was Marc I'd be looking to build some kind of bridge between the paper and the club itself, something that would let me do more than regurgitate banal press statements and programme notes and actually get me some face time with a person who is actually in the know. Perhaps start at dressing room level or amongst the support and clerical staff. Let's face it, the BN like so many other provincial news outlets is getting more and more squeezed by the internet. The BN needs BWFC far more than BWFC needs them.

luckyPeterpiper wrote:

wanderlust wrote:I never had a problem with him in the first place. He's just a reporter and he does a job.

Not as well as he should lusty. In my opinion he's been too openly partisan towards the ST and too openly anti-Ken on too many occasions to be seen as impartial. He made that same mistake with Phil Gartside too if you recall. While I'm all in favour of a journalist's freedom to ask any question he/she wants they have to remain impartial and unbiased when publishing articles. Iles is far from alone in the current trend of reporters printing what they think was said between the lines instead of just reporting the actual words used.

By all means have an opinion piece somewhere if you think it's warranted but make it clear that it's an opinion, not to be confused with actual facts. Right now if Ken said "The sun will almost certainly come up tomorrow" Iles would likely report "Bolton Chairman says world may end tonight".

The shame is I've actually had a couple of fairly intelligent e-mail conversations with Marc Iles and while I can't claim to know him I do think I can say he isn't helping himself by trusting the ST. He's got almost zero lines of communication into the club itself now but the ST knows no more than we do about what's really going on there no matter how much they might wish to believe otherwise. If I was Marc I'd be looking to build some kind of bridge between the paper and the club itself, something that would let me do more than regurgitate banal press statements and programme notes and actually get me some face time with a person who is actually in the know. Perhaps start at dressing room level or amongst the support and clerical staff. Let's face it, the BN like so many other provincial news outlets is getting more and more squeezed by the internet. The BN needs BWFC far more than BWFC needs them.

in an ideal world journalists would be unbiased and factual but they are not and neither are the publications they work for - not many Tories read the Morning Star for example.
And the reason they don't read it is because they know what they're going to get.
Equally that is the case with Marc Iles and I've highlighted a section above that summarises the Sluffy school of journalism.

People generally choose to read publications and authors that they know will reinforce their pre-existing views and "validation" is a function of journalism and other media. 

That said, some people are bright enough to read a wider spectrum of journalism as they understand where the author is coming from and are capable of applying a bias filter.

So with Marc, we know what we're going to get and some people won't agree with him and not bother reading him regularly and some people will apply a bias filter but I don't get the point of reading him and then getting pissed off.

Typical Nuts comments. Start off saying how well he's done, and then start changing it to say where he's gone wrong.

Reminds me of Waldorf and Stadtler from the Muppets 

Any examples of Iles being Anti-Anderson?