They really are shit scared of everyone aren't they. They refuse to criticise the local council and its councillors. They have a pathetic love in with the most inept MP who ever walking through the doors of the Houses of Parliament and as for the football club...

Have you seen the story in the Mail about the takeover? It's the most gutless wishy-washy reporting I have ever had the misfortune of reading.

For gods sake, grow some balls and ask serious questions. It's hardly Woodward and Bernstein territory, we worked it on on a frigging message board. It's your job to investigate, so go do it properly.

http://www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/news/lo ... -1-7087625

They wont and never will.

But ill continue to give peter owens space.

Harry Blackwood wouldn't have been frightened to ask questions.

Local media is fucked now and reliant on having strong relationships with the councils, businesses, sports teams etc. The balance has swung in favour of those who want the press to broadcast their message, and the media just toe the line.

I suppose it's just fact reporting, which is all news reporting should be, fact. Unless he's got some serious dirt with evidence to back it up the issue of libel will deter owt else from being printed.

I think the Mail and all newspapers have to offer critique and opinion otherwise what's the point of them existing! It's just a parish newsletter

It's sad the mail will go to the wall in a few years but they have done nothing to stop it.

The website is awful and there are frequently typos or other errors in the pieces. You often find (turn to page 5) in the middle of an internet article.

Do they still show that picture of a police cordon outside the back of York Road every time there's anything remotely related to the law?

Fair enough you don't want biased reporting but asking questions based on the known facts and clarifying whether rumours that are circulating are facts or not shouldn't be that hard.

They could start by asking stuff like:

Is the takeover going ahead? If it is when, if it isn't why not?

Is Harris banned from the ground? If so why?

Why are you still paying the wages after announcing a takeover?

Is the FA's fit and proper test on TMH still going on? If so why hasn't the deal been completed? If not, what was the result?

If the club won't answer print the questions and say that they wouldn't answer or the mealy mouthed bollocks that they do come out with.

Only reason I can think of not to do that is an overly close, dependent relationship between the paper and the club that the paper don't want to spoil.

As we've touched upon before, it's totally pointless asking these questions as 99% of the time they are ignored, like Joe Allon's piece in the Sunday Sun I think it was.

There has never been room in the Mail for a "speculation" column. It's a newspaper and reports as such. Unless they want to go down the route of the News of the World and hack into people's phone's etc then that's what it'll remain. The complete silence from the club all of this month means in my opinion it was nigh on impossible to "report" on speculation from fans, because we were all just guessing.

I agree it would be nice if papers such as the Mail asked such pertinent questions (I believe Mennear did release something earlier this month) but if they are just going to be answered with silence/no comment then they are just risking being deemed unwelcome at the club for no return. As far as I'm aware Roy Kelly is still sports editor at the Mail, I'd guess it was his call if they went down that route. I'd guess it would be too much risk for too little gain.

Do they realise it's exactly that approach that means nobody buys it.

There is a huge difference between being prepared to put the obvious questions and what the News of the World got up to. One is the least you could expect from a decent paper, the other is quite rightly illegal. The fact that The Mail is scared to do the basics when they're only dealing with the local football club pretty much tells me that it is a pointless rag that is rotten from the top down. There might be some decent individuals working there but that doesn't change the over all picture.

In reference to NOTW I was talking about obtaining "evidence" that may not be common knowledge/easily accessible. With the resources available they can do as much digging as they like... but without evidence they can't go into print. You can't really expect anything else from a local and probably poorly funded paper.

Its not even about huge stories. I asked Richard M about James Marwood, if Pools were interested in him after his release by St Mirren (i think).

It hadn't even crossed his mind that we might be interested in him.

Surely this sort of pro active reporting as posing questions to the Manager is going to attract more readers than the stock "i hope to have a couple in for the weekend" story.