Ex-cluuuu-siiiive! Photo EPL Talk
An exclusive is an excellent way of drawing attention and readers to your newspaper. Imagine that - despite lots of journalists competing for stories, you’ve got intriguing information before everyone else, and they can only read about it by buying a copy of your paper, or leaning across to look at the man next to you on the Tube’s copy.
Evidently, the Daily Mail have a different vision of what exclusive means, or they’ve done very very little research on the story. We’ll leave you to be the judges. Their story “Exclusive: Midnight blue is the colour for Arsenal” is certainly given exclusive billing well beyond the headline:
Sportsmail has acquired snaps of the pinstriped midnight blue number before its release on Thursday, with shorts and socks - with Arsenal printed on the calf, no less - matching the polo necked shirt.
Theo Walcott, pictured below modelling the range, remarked: ‘The new kit is a good colour, and it’s nice to have a contrast with the red home kit.’
Lovely stuff, and good that Theo could spare a few minutes to give the inside track on the exclusive. There are just a few reasons why we didn’t think “wow - how exciting” and we did think “wow - that’s incredibly cynical”:
It’s not an exclusive in the sense that:
1) It’s in another paper - you’ll notice that the Sun are running the story New Arsenal strip is Fab today, complete with a picture of Cesc Fabregas modelling it, which you probably guessed from the pithy headline.
2) It’s been in the public domain for at least a week - here are some pictures of the new Arsenal kit which looks suspiciously like the one Theo and Cesc are wearing on EPL Talk. Date? May 14th.
3) The Daily Mail are too late today anyway - While it’s great that you had these ‘exclusive’ pictures ‘before its release on Thursday’, the fact that they’re not published until Thursday morning (the story went online at 10.14am) and you can already pre-order them on the official Arsenal website means you’re not exactly ahead of the game.
4) No chance it was a cynical marketing ploy? - Both the Sun and the Mail’s stories run with the following words - The new Arsenal away kit is available to pre-order from Arsenal stores and online at www.arsenal.com/shopping. Price: £40 adults, £33 youths - given that and the official photos taken by Arsenal FC, do you think that the Daily Mail hounded and investigated for weeks for this exclusive, or do you think Arsenal sent a quick email and jpgs to coincide with the first day the kit became available online?
You can understand that there is a certain interest in seeing new kits, and the marketing mechanics that go behind appearing in a newspaper cloaked as news - even if you don’t like it. But calling it an exclusive is fairly embarrassing. Top exclusiving, Sportsmail.
Walcott’s quote is a peach as well ‘it’s nice to have a contrast with the red home kit.’ Aren’t away kits supposed to different to the home kit?!?!
Great point. It’s right up there with “I’m surprised they didn’t stick with the red one because that’s really popular” or “Now I don’t have to join Chelsea to play in blue!”. Except that he actually said this one, of course…