Tabloid journalist Mike Brown today spoke in defence of his performance following a disastrous review of Saturdays crunch match between England and the United States. Brown “the clown” as he has widely been called filed a match report laden with grammatical errors, factual inaccuracies and misquotations in the aftermath of the game, which finished in a draw leaving England on course for qualification from the group stages.
A source from within the newspaper suggested that it was hard to see a way back for him adding that some of the schoolboy journalistic errors would hang over his career for a long time.
The under-seige reporter held up his hands in a move that could yet salvage his position: “I’m constantly being asked if I can deal with the pressure. I know what I did wrong and remain confident that I can submit good coherent copy for England’s next match against Algeria, if selected.”
Publicly colleagues are standing by Brown but editor Terry Shaw insisted that a decision on who would be assigned to cover the next England match had not yet been made, in a statement that will do nothing to dampen growing speculation that experienced football journalist Brian Bailey could be set to take over the role. Bailey (51) himself is no stranger to controversy having made several high profile reporting gaffes himself in previous years. In 2002 he made unsubstantiated allegations that led to the break-up of an unnamed footballer’s marriage and last year his employers reached an out of court settlement with a premiership manager for damages in relation to defamation of character following a Bailey article.