Photo by dyobmit

One of constant complaints among football managers is that the media takes their words and twists them. The latest example of this comes from The Daily Telegraph whose headline today screams “Arsene Wenger: Arsenal can win quadruple.” Except he never said that.

What he did say was this:

“We want to go for every single competition. I have said that many times. How far can we go? I personally believe we can go, in every competition, to the end. But we can as well stop very quickly. It’s just down to how much we believe and how much commitment we show. I’m convinced of… we have the hunger, and we have some talent. And we’re all committed to go as far as we can.”

See for yourself by watching the video below from the press conference. Wenger’s quote begins at minute 2:20.

Now what Wenger did say is that Arsenal could go all the way to the finals of the FA Cup, Champions League, Carling Cup (where they’ll play Birmingham at Wembley) and the Premier League title. But he did not say that Arsenal could win the quadruple. He simply said that they have the hunger and commitment to go as far as they can.

The danger with mainstream news organizations such as The Telegraph is that other media companies will run with the headline without first doing their homework to verify what Wenger had actually said (i.e. lazy journalism). But no matter what happens, it’s a perfect example illustrating that you should never believe everything you read in a newspaper. The blogosphere is not immune from such mistakes either, but it’s important that newspapers set a good example for other media organizations by reporting the truth and facts instead of making up a story out of nothing.