Everyone Please Read-We Are Bloggers, Not Journalists

By: Ryan | January 28th, 2008

(Please, I urge everyone to read to the end of this article, it might affect you some day)

I don’t speak for anyone that writes here on The Offside, for any other sports bloggers, or bloggers in general, but I do speak for myself.

I’m not a journalist. I’m a blogger. Those two things are completely different. I blog about football, but mostly, and like most of us here, we get out ‘information’ it is from reading articles, watching games, listening to the radio, and thinking critically about issues. Blogging is almost like writing a constant final paper for a class. You take in tons of information from various sources and put it together in a nice, neat compact article for the rest of the world to read.

I have no responsibility to be a journalist. None of us bloggers have that responsibility, for blogging is a completely different entity. I’m not getting paid, and frankly if you don’t want to read what I write, then don’t come back. I’m a Ph.D Linguistics student for God sakes, I don’t work for the New York Times.

I also don’t make up things that I write. Even though we are ‘bloggers’ any of the good ones out there don’t lie, or make up the facts. I’m not a reporter, but I still want to give factual information to my readers.

So what happens when a highly respected

blogger

posts something that has been verified by various sources but is highly controversial (and downright disgusting if you ask me). He has no journalistic ‘ode’ to abide by, but he is simply expressing what he believes to be true, on his own personal space. If you don’t believe it, then leave, right?

Well, Jesus Alvarado, the best Sevilla blogger out there has found himself in just that position.

After the Osasuna-Sevilla game on Saturday, tempers flared after a hard and physical game, capped off by a ‘dubious’ penalty call in the 90th minute and subsequent winning goal scored by Luis Fabiano. The game was marred with a few elbows and tackles that looked more like cage fighting than football.

Ziganda, Osasuna’s Coach, came onto the field and put his hands around the throat of Sevilla Assistant Cristobol Soria. This action was documented by Iturralde’s post-match report (you can see it for yourself here in the official match report). But that’s not all he did.

Subsequently, Jesus wrote an article, and this is what it said

Title: Ziganda: ‘Teneis que estar todos muertos como puerta’

Esas palabras fueron pronunciadas en la noche de ayer por Ziganda, entrenador de Osasuna, en el momento en que Iturralde señala penalti tras tocar Javi García el balón con la mano en el área en la pugna con Chevantón.

Esto es gravísimo.

Y real.

Voy a reproducir lo que dijo el entrenador de Osasuna:

“Hijos de puta. Sois todos unos hijos de puta. Todo lo malo que os ha pasado y todo lo malo que os pase os lo merecéis”.

“Teníais que estar todos muertos como Puerta”.

Ziganda.

El entrenador de Osasuna.

No me invento nada.

Hay testigos. Muchos testigos.

Ahora…¿qué es lo que hay que hacer?

The gist of the article, for those who don’t speak Spanish. Is that Osasuna coach Ziganda, upset with the last minute penalty call against Osasuna yelled out.

‘Sons of bitches, sons of bitches. You deserve everything bad that happened and that may happen to you. You all should be dead like Puerta’

Wow.

This was verified by various sources who all told Jesus the same story. As a blogger, he published the story, and why wouldn’t he? He wasn’t lying, he had the story confirmed by many people, who ALL told the same story.

Well, preaching to the popularity of blogs these days, Jesus’s story got out, big time. Everyone was talking about it and in fact, it got all the way to Ziganda himself. People were calling for his head after hearing this absolutly disgraceful comment.

Well, leave MARCA, the POS that it is, to come to the rescue.

They published a story yesterday, in which Ziganda apologized for his actions and for coming out on the pitch after the game,

In the story, Ziganda said ‘I’m sorry for what I did, not for what I didn’t do’

But, the most crucial part of this story is the final paragraph.

Ziganda niega así, categóricamente, las gravísimas acusaciones vertidas en un blog de internet por una persona que colabora con la radio oficial del Sevilla. De hecho, los servicios jurídicos de Osasuna tomarán acciones legales por difamaciones y calumnias contra esta persona.

Ziganda denied, categorically, the grave accusations spilled in an internet blog by a person that collaborates with Sevilla FC Radio. In fact, the Osasuna ‘Judicial Services’ will be taking legal action for defamation and slander against this person.

So now, the authorities in Osasuna are looking to take legal action for what Jesus said in his blog and that Ziganda denies with all his being. Mind you, the story was first published in Jesus’s blog only, not anywhere else. AND on his blog, he makes no claim to the club, but that space is his own space for him to express whatever he wants to express.

This caused an uproar amongst the Sevilla blogging community. Comments left after the article were both denouncing and supporting Jesus, but mostly the latter. All of the Sevilla bloggers have been posting articled defending Jesus, whom I spoke to just last week on his program, Sevillistas por el Mundo.

But it doesn’t end there. In comes the calvary.

Today, Diario de Sevilla, the biggest newspaper in Sevilla, published an article confirming what Jesus had wrote in his blog to be true. Essentially, the newspaper came to the aid of Alvarado, giving MARCA the big middle finger and putting the story in print, for all to see.

Jesus is still being pursued by the Osasuna Judicial System for his comments, but that’s going to be a bit harder now since Diario de Sevilla published their article today.

This isn’t about what team you stand behind, it’s simply being able to blog about whatever you want to, and to be able to say whatever you want to say. They accused Jesus of being libelous, but he isn’t. He’s a blogger for God sakes, and he must be pretty powerful if what he says is being reported in a National daily AND he is being investigated for ‘defamation’

But now, because it’s posted by a newspaper, it must be true.

I’m standing behind my fellow Sevillista and felt it necessary to tell the English speaking world what’s going on.

Thanks for reading. I would appreciate your comments below.