Inside Line: Motorsport Network who are you shilling for?

Bust! I have suggested it before that Motorsport Network (MN) is a public relations organisation dishing out press releases on behalf of the world of racing and not that I needed proof but when it falls on one’s lap then it is worth sharing.

Through massive investment (in a very negative media financial climate) MN have colonised the motor racing media market and with it no doubt millions of readers. For me personally, as a media guy, this is always dangerous when vast swathes of the media landscape are controlled by one organisation.

You can see by the content and ‘exclusives’ supplied by teams, drivers, officials etcetera MN is the ‘holy grail’ of exposure and therefore the go-to place for their news outlet.

The whole MN explosion has always mystified me since it napalmed every independent site and then vacuumed the dross into the ‘all dancing and all singing’ websites they have now.

But, who really finances them and to what end?

Very blurry no matter who tells you what and I can vouch for some dodgy characters involved in the early stages of what has become a racing media colonial superpower.

Why is Zak Brown a big wig in the organisation despite his obvious interests in McLaren and United Autosports?

There are so many interests conflicting in that question that it is quite astounding he still remains there, but then not really because MN is a PR agency in disguise and Zak supposedly Mr.PR!

Okay back to the bust…

The Martin Whitmarsh comments about his former team was huge when it broke in the Daily Mail last week. Seismic if you really think about what it means to the second most successful team in the sport.

What the former team principal revealed could even signal the downfall of the current ‘rookie’ leadership. Big news!

However, oddly not a single line about this on the MN red-light district of sites. And equally alarming is the apparent ‘lack of interest’ from the other ‘heavy hitters’ of F1 media.

Even the self-styled messiah of Formula 1 journos Joe Saward has been deafeningly silent (at time of writing) on the matter. Honestly, he is my main man for certain F1 info, but I only do his blog.

Maybe he wrote something in one of the many newsletters he busks for. Or perhaps he too has amigos at Woking…

Of course, McLaren had to deny Whitmarsh’s revelations, after all this was coming from their former boss. Indeed the denial finally came with a statement that appeared first on… MN of course!

Worth noting when we asked McLaren for comment on Saturday morning they replied on Monday with a simple: “There’s no comment from our side.”

Then, on Wednesday evening the McLaren denial was published on MN. I am sure you get the picture.

In a nutshell: they ignore the Whitmarsh story, then they get first dibs on the denial and they f#ck that up too!

Indulge me while I stoke the conspiracy theory element of this piece.

It was huge news, so why did MN ignore Whitmarsh’s quotes in the first place? It was a slow F1 weekend, had they published that story it would have hung out on the top of their web page for the whole weekend. Bad press for the Woking outfit.

Instead, MN wrote the denial which remained top of their page for at least eight hours since it was published throughout Wednesday evening and Thursday morning CET time.

In the piece, they quote the wrong source as Mail on Sunday when in fact it was the piece written by John McEvoy – entitled: McLaren face revolt as staff appeal to former boss Martin Whitmarsh to help ailing F1 team – and published late night on 15 June.

We ran the report sourced from the Daily Mail here>>>

Why did this happen? Did they try to confuse readers and play up their ‘client’ which in this instance Brown’s McLaren team? Were they attempting to discredit Whitmarsh at the same time?

The subtle double negatives in the headline (reminding us all Whitmarsh was dismissed and is very much ‘ex’), as well as the unflattering Whitmarsh photo smell of an amateur media stitch-up job if ever there was one.

Point of this Inside Line?

The ever-growing global cancer of misinformation has now spread and is increasingly malignant in motorsport, sure MN and their affiliates give you plenty news, videos, podcasts, tech updates and other frills, indeed mostly they have it all covered by some very credible journos and motorsport professionals.

But when news emerges that makes their associates (a growing list) look bad, then the mandate would come from high-up to run or not run the story, and of course when and how to spin it.

The Whitmarsh stitch-up is exactly that, manipulation by misinformation to discredit him. And there is no doubt this prevails throughout their reporting that includes every meaningful motor racing series on the planet.

In other words, MN are not always telling the whole truth when readers believe that is why they exist. Increasingly (and to me unsurprisingly) they appear to be shilling for the highest bidders – they cat like a PR agency with motorsport news websites at their disposal.

Serious readers who love the sport should be made aware of this.