limpid Posted September 4, 2008 Administrator Share Posted September 4, 2008 I thought I’d take a look at how accurate the press are at picking out their Villa rumours. Obviously picking every single story from every source would be pretty much impossible so I’ve taken the first source from each rumour, to see how the sources shape up against each other on being the first to ‘break’ a rumour. I have credited both Tribal Football and Sunderland Echo with the Cuellar story as they both reported the rumour on the same day. I’ve omitted Guzan rumours because it’s impossible to know who is first, along with the fact that everyone knew we were going to move for him anyway having tried to sign him in January. Sources reporting a story after it has been rumoured by another source are not credited (or discredited), even if they may have been accurate because[*:face56245d]they could have just copied it from another source and[*:face56245d]I’d be working it out from now until Rafa Benitez says something worth listening to. Notice how the Guardian, who are generally seen as a very reliable source. Were not actually the first to report any of our transfers. There were 19 sources that were the first to come up with a rumour, they are shown below in order of accuracy: [table][row][col]The Sunderland Echo[col]2 Rumours [col]1 Correct 50% (Cuellar) [row][col]Teamtalk[col]3 Rumours[col]1 Correct 33% (Shorey) [row][col]Daily Mail[col]4 Rumours[col]1 Correct 25% (Friedel) [row][col]The Mirror[col]17 Rumours[col]2 Correct 11.8% (Sidwell and Milner) [row][col]Tribal Football[col]15 Rumours[col]1 Correct 6.6% (Cuellar) [row][col]Evening Star (Suffolk)[col]1 Rumour[col]0 Correct 0% [row][col]Dariovasco.com[col]1 Rumour[col]0 Correct 0% [row][col]Irish Sun[col]1 Rumour[col]0 Correct 0% [row][col]The Times[col]1 Rumour[col]0 Correct 0% [row][col]BBC (online and 5Live)[col]2 Rumours[col]0 Correct 0% [row][col]Guardian[col]2 Rumours[col]0 Correct 0% [row][col]Sportingo.com[col]3 Rumours[col]0 Correct 0% [row][col]The Star[col]4 Rumours[col]0 Correct 0% [row][col]Setanta[col]4 Rumours[col]0 Correct 0% [row][col]The Sun[col]5 Rumours[col]0 Correct 0% [row][col]The People[col]6 Rumours[col]0 Correct 0% [row][col]Express and Star[col]7 Rumours[col]0 Correct 0% [row][col]NOTW[col]8 Rumours[col]0 Correct 0% [row][col]Sky Sports[col]9 Rumours[col]0 Correct 0% [row][col]Evening Mail[col]16 Rumours[col]0 Correct 0%[/table] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bcarpet Posted September 4, 2008 Share Posted September 4, 2008 the evening mail have to be dissapointed with that result! and how odd is it that a local paper in sunderland is the most accurate source of info for a midlands based club?! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Posted September 4, 2008 Share Posted September 4, 2008 Who is the most accurate source of Villa rumours? MYSTERYMAN, of course :nod: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobTheBuilder Posted September 4, 2008 Share Posted September 4, 2008 All this proves, very eloquently, is that NONE of the rags have any more clue than we do. All of it is guesswork and adding two and two (mostly to make 73 and a half!). Much of what you read in the newspapers is directly contradictory or complete tosh. What would be enlightening, if anybody had the time and resources to do the job, would be to gather all of the sports pages from the last year and count all the times an item was ACCURATE. I bet my bottom dollar you wouldn't get above a few percent except where the item is published in response to an official press release. At the moment, Sky have a headline about MON being in contract talks with Ashley Young, despite the official line being the exact opposite. Newspapers exist to make their owners money, not to print the truth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rjw63 Posted September 4, 2008 Share Posted September 4, 2008 the evening mail have to be dissapointed with that result! and how odd is it that a local paper in sunderland is the most accurate source of info for a midlands based club?! It's that Gary Rowe - what a legend! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demitri_C Posted September 4, 2008 Share Posted September 4, 2008 Evening Mail 16 Rumours 0 Correct 0% the mail 0% shock horror Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dont_do_it_doug. Posted September 4, 2008 Share Posted September 4, 2008 What about Friedel? Young? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paddy Posted September 4, 2008 Share Posted September 4, 2008 What about Friedel? Young? Ah shit, I knew I'd missed someone out of those calculations. Daily Mail broke the story and that was their 1 hit out of 4, so they got a hit percentage of 25% which puts them third. For some reason there wasn't a Luke Young thread on the speculation index. If someone could edit the Daily Mail into 3rd place for me with 1 out of 4 (25%) that'd be great thanks. I was quite tired by the time I finished last night, hence me missing the Friedel rumour on my list. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limpid Posted September 4, 2008 Author Administrator Share Posted September 4, 2008 Done (I hope). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paddy Posted September 4, 2008 Share Posted September 4, 2008 Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sellbydate Posted September 4, 2008 Share Posted September 4, 2008 ah The Mirror with the "throw enough shit and something will stick" approach Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b23avfc Posted September 4, 2008 Share Posted September 4, 2008 I think we should reverse the stats to show which is the most inaccurate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Posted September 5, 2008 Share Posted September 5, 2008 ah The Mirror with the "throw enough shit and something will stick" approach TBF, I think all of the tabloids are guilty of that .... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AVFCinSpain Posted September 5, 2008 Share Posted September 5, 2008 Hopefully we don't have to worry too much about the Mirror's Barton rumour then!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paddy Posted September 5, 2008 Share Posted September 5, 2008 Hopefully we don't have to worry too much about the Mirror's Barton rumour then!! Yeah, it would seem not! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
svilla Posted September 6, 2008 Share Posted September 6, 2008 The media will not be interested in their levels of accuracy, but in how many customers they can attract eg how many phone their no's or buy their papers. Also interesting is to ask what percentage their rumours are false and the percentage is often near 100%. The question we have to ask ourselves is how do we act differently on these results? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LittleDeehanGray Posted September 8, 2008 Share Posted September 8, 2008 The Guardian had the Luke Young story first didn't they? I first saw the Cuellar story in the Sunday Mercury just before he signed and I'm sure the Evening Mail had Sidwell a long time before he signed for us. Don't know about any others Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derekmountfield Posted October 29, 2008 Share Posted October 29, 2008 Why hasn't the Sunday Mercury been included on the accuracy chart? It's usually a reliable source. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts