Daniel Taylor · @DTguardian
15th Sep 2013 from TwitLonger
On Forest, thanks for everyone's tweets. It's strange, bizarre and a bit embarrassing, not just as a journalist but also a supporter of the club for 30 years.
The most interesting thing of the last day, by some distance, is the number of fellow supporters who appear to find the media blackout (or whatever the word is) petty and self-defeating and, more than anything, just all a bit daft. This should be a time the club - a bloody brilliant club (I'm biased but, sod it, it's true) - is trying to embrace the media and use it for their benefit, not concocting imaginary feuds and banning or ostracising papers/journalists/websites.
Anyway, I wanted to say cheers for those supportive messages now the Grauniad/Obs has joined the others on the naughty step (and no doubt see a few of you at Burnley in a couple of weeks).
I'm pleased to see @jimbo519242 says he will respond this week and I am going to ask him to look at these questions (below), too.
Sorry for the Twitlonger . .
1 - Jim, do you agree with the concerns of a lot of Forest supporters that the issue with the media, first with the locals and now the nationals, is in danger of undermining the good work that is going on elsewhere at the club. Is it not an unwanted, and unnecessary, distraction?
2 - When Fawaz took over, there were four different managers in a matter of months, rumours of team interference, the George Boyd stuff, stories about cash-flow issues etc. In the more difficult moments, many Forest fans were alarmed by the chaotic nature of it. Since then, he has been brilliant in many different ways (hurrah). With everything going so well, does he really want all this going on simultaneously in the background?
3 - Do you think Forest would benefit from a proper PR comms director with experience of working in football? Every other serious club has one. Why not Forest?
4 - Why have Forest banned a freelance reporter, with 40 years of covering the club, after he pressed Billy on why he was holding his post-match press conference v Leicester City before the match? This reporter covers matches for various titles including the Sun. Is it really a good idea shutting out the Sun for no apparent reason?
5 - What specifically have the local media done to offend you so much? What, for example, has Radio Nottm said about Billy that has aggrieved you so much?
6 - Do you not respect the fact that, when relations were better, Billy frequently spoke to the local media off-record (on tape) about all his grievances – much of it fairly explosive stuff – and none of what he said has ever been written or broadcasted (or leaked on Twitter etc)? Is this not him actually being looked after by the journalists you dislike?
7 - If there is an issue with the NEP should the relevant people not be sitting down in a room for a grown-up conversation and sort it out in an adult way? Do you not think the Forest fans in Nottingham would like to read about the club in their local paper?
8 - How do you think it will be for Forest in the Prem, if promoted, when they start getting serious media attention? Has your media dept not briefed you on how self-defeating all this might be?
9 - Are you punishing journalists you suspect as having contact with the previous regime? Does that also extend to me? If yes . . . are you aware I have never had any form of contact with Mark Arthur or Nigel Doughty, and does that not make all this even sillier than it already is?
**** Jim, this is embarrassing ****
10 - A member of your staff wrote to the Guardian saying the club had info I might have been 'on a stag do' for the Wolves game. Did you think I was on a stag do in the pressbox? I like David Stapleton, John McGovern, etc but I don't think it would be the greatest session . . (that's just a joke). The stag do was in the evening; in other words, irrelevant. So why mention it?
11 - The Guardian emailed Forest explaining I am the resident Forest 'expert' so would have been asked to do all the writing, previews, features etc if - as looked likely in March - the club had reached the playoffs? As was pointed out, is it not therefore important for me to attend games to know what's happening, see the relevant people, network, speak to managers etc? Are you aware of another case, anywhere, when a football journalist has been banned for attending a game?
12 - Looking at a lot of the above questions, do you not think a lot of this is incredibly small-time?
13 - Forest, as stated above, are a bloody great club. Should a great club ever be used as a personal vehicle if there is a risk of it being to the detriment of the club?
ends