ITK. Part 1 of I don't know how many.

I knocked this up while on lunch. 

Ask me questions about it / comment (by tweeting at me, I rarely look at the comments on the blog) and I will do my best to answer them in Part 2, whenever that is written. 

Twitter can be a great place but it can also breed a lot of nonsense, rudeness and people claiming to be something they’re not. Transfers seem to be a hot topic for Twitter, what with the window being open ‘n’ all, and it’s interesting to see a few things become a prevailing theme.

In The Knows.

Nobody is ITK. People have thoughts on what they think may happen and journalists receive news from sources they publish on the belief it will happen. All the honest journalists on Twitter are excellent follows (too many to name) but there’s a difference between their tweets and the tweets of others claiming to be ITK.

Disclaimer: Due to the nature of my blog and things I tweet (and the regularity of such) I’ve decided to not publish things like where I work, how, who with, my face, etc. Accept that and move on.

There are many reasons why people go on Twitter. Mine is for news. To find it and tweet about it. And everyone, deep down, whether you’re Lady Gaga (10m +) or some 13-year-old kid (7) – you like to have followers. You like to have people who regularly speak to you.

But this isn’t a blog about followers, it’s a blog about ITKs.

The only credible people on Twitter as regards ITK info regarding transfers are those who work in the game. FootballAgentPM works in the game as an agent – he’s good. All the journalists are paid to find out stuff – they’re good. I do too – I like to think I’m good!

However, there’s a prevalence for ITK or people claiming to be ITK spring up. There are exceptions to this rule, of course – namely people like M16_ORA and FourthOfficial. From what they have told me (which will remain private) it is clear that they are not working journalists but receive information from people who should be respected.

There are others who like to believe they have information but I am sceptical of this. There’s many obvious fuckers on Twitter (FootyAgentITK etc) who do this to be an internet troll, but I believe there are others who are more underhand; who try to cultivate a serious persona to come across as credible. But I am sceptical.

A FEW HINTS

‘I BEAT SKY’

If you see someone repeatedly claim they are ahead of the game and the major news outlets, then it’s a tell-tale sign they are begging for more exposure and want people to take them seriously.

A classic is ‘I beat SSN and the BBC to this…check my timeline.’ There are numerous gullible idiots that will then see this as someone being ahead of the game.

In reality, not one credible, professional person would tweet such stuff. They’d go about their business in a relatively calm manner, not screaming TOLD YOU SO when something is written in the media / something comes true.

So, be aware of things like this:

*****

VincenzoPerotti Vincenzo Perotti 

@ 

@TransfersManUtd Lets hear a deal you have broken? You claimed Monday. Lies.

****

And also…

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1andOnlyWalshy Dan Walsh 

Morning people. Good to see media reporting Sneijder could join within 48 hours, that'd be my update from yesterday then? Lol

*****

And more…

*****

1andOnlyWalshy Dan Walsh 

I beat sky and other reports to the Nasri news. City are 100% out of Sneijder race

***** 

If you were a credible and professional person giving honest news, would you honestly bark often about how you’ve ‘beaten SKY’ and demand from people ‘let’s hear a deal you have broken’

I wouldn’t assume so.

‘WE HAVE A DATE’

Similarly, there are people who claim something will definitely happen on Monday. Or Tuesday, or whatever. They give exact timeframes. Nobody in the game really knows when something will definitely happen. The journalists have an idea of such, but still it’s a messy thing to get involved in.

PEOPLE WHO GIVE UPDATES DAILY

I have noticed many people on twitter who seem to, amazingly, have a fresh update on a major transfer story every day. This is cast iron bollocks. Not even the best paid journalists in the land or investigative reporters can have an update on something so major every day, without fail. But some people on Twitter seem to.

In reality, clubs and sources are going to get pretty pissed off (trust me – they do. I called up a club three times in a week and I got some choice words thrown at me once. ‘Can you piss off for a week?’ was the gist) if you bother them constantly for news. They’ll leak stuff when they see fit.

So how can people constantly update with things? They can’t. Unless they’re making it up.

I HAVE AN UPDATE AT 5PM…

If you ever hear variations on this, it’s nearly always bollocks. Why give a time? It gives you the chance to get this tweet RT’d, more followers eagerly awaiting the big news…to then find out you’re having a laugh.

You will see journalists do this, but this is different and also rare. Mirror Football have done it once or twice, but usually this tweet is at 10pm at night with the announcement on the story soon. This is because they actually DO have a story they have sourced etc and the only reason why they are waiting is because the first editions of the paper have not been printed yet.