Iles throws a social media strop!

I agree up to a point but doesn't he also have a responsibility to question why the club has gotten into such a state. If he's best mates with the hierarchy at the club that's not going to happen is it? 
That does have to be done in a professional manner which in the paper i think he has done that, on twitter and other social media then yes maybe he has let his personal feelings come to the fore too often.

Norpig wrote:I agree up to a point but doesn't he also have a responsibility to question why the club has gotten into such a state. If he's best mates with the hierarchy at the club that's not going to happen is it? 
That does have to be done in a professional manner which in the paper i think he has done that, on twitter and other social media then yes maybe he has let his personal feelings come to the fore too often.

Agree that there are times when he has every right to ask some serious questions. Surely though, he should approach them in a way that doesn't drive a massive wedge between the BN and BWFC.

finlaymcdanger wrote:

Norpig wrote:I agree up to a point but doesn't he also have a responsibility to question why the club has gotten into such a state. If he's best mates with the hierarchy at the club that's not going to happen is it? 
That does have to be done in a professional manner which in the paper i think he has done that, on twitter and other social media then yes maybe he has let his personal feelings come to the fore too often.

Agree that there are times when he has every right to ask some serious questions. Surely though, he should approach them in a way that doesn't drive a massive wedge between the BN and BWFC.

Exactly this, and he needs to stop getting distracted by negative forces constantly trying to create dramas which ultimately have a massive impact on the fans, players and club as a whole

Norpig wrote:I agree up to a point but doesn't he also have a responsibility to question why the club has gotten into such a state. If he's best mates with the hierarchy at the club that's not going to happen is it? 
That does have to be done in a professional manner which in the paper i think he has done that, on twitter and other social media then yes maybe he has let his personal feelings come to the fore too often.

Wow, at last people are beginning to see/acknowledge what I've been saying for the last couple of years in that Iles has clearly been biased against Anderson and pro his mates Dean Holdsworth and the wannabe ST Board seeking to own the club at all costs contributing enormously to stirring up all the shit and toxicity that has surrounded our club for the last couple of seasons.

Norpig I refer you to Aesop's Fable of the North Wind v The Sun about why it is better to be friendly and respectful to the club owner/s rather than start a war with them - irrespective if you like them personally or not.

"The story concerns a competition between the North Wind and the Sun to decide which is the stronger of the two. The challenge was to make a passing traveller remove his cloak. However hard the North Wind blew, the traveller only wrapped his cloak tighter to keep warm, but when the Sun shone, the traveller was overcome with heat and soon took his cloak off".

The moral of the tale being about the superiority of persuasion over force.

Perhaps if Anderson wasn't attacked by all sides, particularly with Iles so blatantly leading Twitter/social media against him and clearly pushing Holdsworth and the ST's agenda in print, then maybe things wouldn't necessarily turn out the way things did, in that Anderson would not have felt as though he was a trapped rat all the time having to clear his name in his notes, and maybe Iles would have been given access and knowledge of what the club/Anderson was facing and how things were having to be done to deal with them.

Maybe it wouldn't have, I don't know - but at least he would have had a door open where it could still have been, rather Iles slamming it shut on Anderson from day one, burning the bridge to him and then wondering why (after publicly ripping the piss out of him with his picture of Scrooge aimed directly at Ken) having his press privileges banned by him at the club.

Totally unprofessional by him and if I had done something similar (public ridiculing of the owner of your key (and only) client being your job was to report on football in Bolton) I would have been sacked on the spot for gross misconduct and bringing my employer into disrepute - and rightly so.

For what it is worth I fully believe that Bonnar got the chop for that (being his boss and not reigning him in) and his own drunken tweets and that Iles blew what ever chance he had for promotion into Bonnars senior job.

I note that since I started this thread Iles has not made a single personal tweet other than to push his articles in the paper.

It's clear to me that he's had his knuckles rapped - miles too late but better than never I suppose.

Look, while I personally don't rate Iles the fact is he's not a big deal on the media stage or anywhere else for that matter. The truth is he works for a small town paper reporting on the events of a small town football club. He's tried to make himself and his stories more important/sensational than they really are and like a lot of journalists tried to paint himself as 'the man in the know' when in fact he's actually got little more if any idea of what's really going on than the fans.

He probably felt that the ST would get him an 'inside track' into the club and let's face it when it was first mooted many of us felt it would be a good thing. It was only when it became clear the people running it were self-publicising fantasists that we realised they were (largely) a waste of space. But by then Iles had upset not one but two club hierarchies and he'd already nailed his colours to the mast so he had no choice but to carry on down the road he'd started on.

The Bolton News itself should have stepped in long ago to try and curb Iles at least a bit but like all the smaller media outlets they need revenue and since Iles got a lot of 'clicks' compared to the rest of the BN they let him run with it. Frankly his conduct has been at times unprofessional and he's made himself look downright stupid but I don't think he's some evil spin-doctor with an agenda, just a guy who backed the wrong horse and wound up looking like a pratt as a result.

The problem is lpp, the blind sheep fuckwits follow his every word as gospel and act accordingly. From tantrums to trolling.

y2johnny wrote:The problem is lpp, the blind sheep fuckwits follow his every word as gospel and act accordingly. From tantrums to trolling.

I agree but is that really his fault? Let's face it, Paris Hilton has over 6 million followers on Twitter and most of them seem to believe she's a divine oracle of truth and knowledge.

In truth the internet age, particularly the era of social media has proven what we already knew. There's no shortage of stupid in the world. Don't forget, enough people actually voted to make Donald Trump the President of the USA and many of them still believe in him.

In truth I think Iles has made some bad calls but to blame him for the fact his followers are either too ignorant or lazy to do even the most basic fact checking on their own isn't his fault. It's theirs.

It's a matter of context Peter.

Iles isn't a big fish nationally (or even regionally) but if you depend (and believe) the news about your club from the local journalist then clearly he holds quite amount of sway on what you hear and believe.

He's not been fair, open and without bias on what he says - particularly on twitter/social media - but also in his reporting in the press (I keep throwing out the challenge for anyone to link me/us to a negative article on Holdsworth or the ST - he's never written one despite all the questions that surrounds the BM loan and how the money was secured on the club but the loan taken out by SSBWFC - nor why the loan was for £5m but the club accounts clearly showed they only received £4m! - and as for the ST, Christ he has his choice of about a million negative things the ST have done (not held its AGM one year, which is about the only thing it really is required to do!!!)).

So if he is the only place you get your BWFC news from and he's telling you on twitter that Ken's a cunt and the ST are the best thing since slice bread, what are you going to believe?

Iles is a big fish in a tiny pond.

And so it's only right that he reports fairly and without an agenda.

I really do think Iles has made the situation more toxic than it ever needed to have got - he took sides to get the club owner out - Iles became the story himself at times.

I also really do think Bonnar was potted for his 'worse possible result for Anderson tweet' and his frequent clear drunkenness on line - and that Iles has been read the riot act also.

It just goes to show how 'influencers' like Iles can manipulate people's opinions if they are simply formed from social media and accept what they are reading as gospel.

Sluffy thanks for the sermon, i did skip most of it but i get the gist. I do have a brain and am not a sheep it's just  me and my humble opinions nothing more nothing less. I'm not even on twitter so have no idea what he's said on there in the past.

You don't get this drama with the Chorley Guardian.

No all you get in there are stories of inbreeding and knitting patterns for six fingered gloves.

Norpig wrote:No all you get in there are stories of inbreeding and knitting patterns for six fingered gloves.

You massive Bolton bellend, come down to Victory Park on 3rd August and say that. You'll get a right twating.

luckyPeterpiper wrote:

y2johnny wrote:The problem is lpp, the blind sheep fuckwits follow his every word as gospel and act accordingly. From tantrums to trolling.

I agree but is that really his fault? Let's face it, Paris Hilton has over 6 million followers on Twitter and most of them seem to believe she's a divine oracle of truth and knowledge.

In truth the internet age, particularly the era of social media has proven what we already knew. There's no shortage of stupid in the world. Don't forget, enough people actually voted to make Donald Trump the President of the USA and many of them still believe in him.

In truth I think Iles has made some bad calls but to blame him for the fact his followers are either too ignorant or lazy to do even the most basic fact checking on their own isn't his fault. It's theirs.

The difference is Peter the nature of his job - Iles is a paid journalist to report the news and facts.

His job is not to go on twitter and make out the club owner is a crook.

If he can prove he's a crook then put it in the paper then link to it, if he can't then he should keep his opinion to himself and not go public with it on social media for all to read.

How can he write and impartial article for the people who are paying his wages if he's spouting shit about the owner to the very people who buy the paper.

It can't be done.

If he's writing articles that report on what the club owner is saying, whilst at the same time implying on twitter that he is lying, then what worth are his articles, why should people buy something that they know he personally rubbishing on social media?

It's a bit like me saying on Nuts that Peter is a great bloke, then going on Twitter/FaceBook saying that Peter is a nutjob and don't believe a word he says.

Would you have anything to do with me after doing that - of course you wouldn't and that's why the club owner didn't want anything to do with Iles and ultimately banning him when he though he could take the piss out of him.

Iles clearly though he could do what he wanted and I think he's now found out that couldn't and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if he's been told to keep off social media now that we will soon have a new owner in place.

True sluffy but since we're discussing context let's just add this. Gartside and Davies refused to talk to him for years. Ken ducked him all too often and Iles didn't help himself with his blinkered approach to Dean Holdsworth and the ST, largely I think because of course Holdsworth was a popular player here and the ST had the public backing of John McGinlay a club legend.

Here's where he made his first (and in my opinion largest) mistake. By being 'in' with them he was seen by many fans as someone who must know what he's talking about and he did nothing to dispel that. Even after Dean walked with a million quid Iles tried to paint him as some sort of 'martyr' forced out by Beelzebub Anderson when he could and should have gone directly to Ken and said "Look, we got off on the wrong foot here, let's try again. Tell us your side of the story."

Iles biggest failing is his own ego. Because of it he's wound up marginalised at best if not outright ignored by the very people he most needed to talk to. The change of ownership from ED to KA should have been a golden opportunity for him but he flubbed it like he's flubbed so much else by trying to be 'in the know'.

Has he deliberately fabricated stories? Possibly but I think it's more likely he's put his trust in the wrong people and taken certain 'sources' at face value rather than properly attempting to corroborate them. In a way it even makes sense because in today's instant news world being the first to get the word out is a big deal. I think Iles gambled that his 'sources' knew what they were talking about and so just printed or tweeted what they said without getting into the background.

Of course he got caught out many times but (and this is his second and in my opinion THE unforgivable part) instead of holding his hand up and saying sorry I got it wrong he not only ploghed on with the junk he went on Twitter to castigate the very people who could and with the right approach almost certainly would have given him the straight gen he needed. His ego wouldn't and still doesn't allow him to accept he was played and so it HAS to be the fault of those nasty people who won't talk to him. The ST are his friends and wouldn't DREAM of using him to further their own fantasy land agendas would they?

But as to his twitter followers. I still say if they're stupid enough to believe anything Iles is saying after all this time then frankly there's no hope for them anyway. About the best that can be said on that subject is at least we know where the lunatics are, in the Iles Asylum for Incredibly Gullible Plonkers.

I don’t follow his twitter, but when did Iles call Ken a crook?

Again we're largely in agreement here sluffy, at least about Iles and his personal credibility. Where I disagree with you is in that his 'followers' should be held accountable for their own stupidity.

Personally I believe the Bolton News would be better off taking the opportunity the new owners provide to bring in a new journalist to cover club affairs. I hate to call for the sacking of anyone since I know from bitter personal experience just how horrible it is to lose a job through incompetence or simply not being up to snuff but my opinion is that Iles has to go if the BN is to gain and retain any credibility as a professional media outlet.

Journalists having an opinion is nothing new of course but Iles left opinion behind along with the facts a long time ago. When opinion is replaced by ignorant vitriol and dangerously close to libellous unsupported allegations you can't be called a journalist.

For my money Marc Iles has become a blogger and a very uninformed, unintelligent one at that.

T.R.O.Y wrote:I don’t follow his twitter, but when did Iles call Ken a crook?

He's implied it many times, particularly with his 'likes' of other peoples tweets describing him as such.

That’s just a massive stretch from you then. Let’s stick to the facts.

its a Sluffy 'fact' like most of his ramblings, it's his opinion dressed up as fact.

Wouldn’t be bothered as much if sluffy’s excuse for being ferociously pro-Anderson wasn’t based on a supposed obsession with facts in everything he does.

Stinking hypocrisy.