Certain tabloids were twisting stories about Wilfired Zaha again last weekend.
The Sun ran a back page story claiming that Zaha carries the team and that he does all the work for his team mates while Sky Sports also picked up on the quotes and ran a similar story.
The quotes were manipulated and completely taken out of context from a fantastic interview between Zaha and HLTCO, a Crystal Palace fan site. In the original interview, Zaha praises his fellow team mates at Palace and expresses his admiration for the fans of the club.
🚨EXCLUSIVE🚨
HLTCO Interviews… Wilfried Zaha
We discuss the start to the season, the transfer window, the quality of the current squad, his favourite position, Hodgson, Brighton memories, why Palace will always be his favourite club & more…https://t.co/DeJaGplN1B #cpfc
— HLTCO (@HLTCO) September 19, 2019
The twisting of quotes from this exclusive interview has enraged the Palace fan base who took to Twitter to respond quickly to the tabloid lies and to defend Zaha and the original interview.
Sky Sports taking quotes out of context from @HLTCO’s interview with @wilfriedzaha. I was actually pleasantly surprised with how positive Zaha was about Palace https://t.co/GJ7zRoCN9a
— Liam© (@liamb0117) September 21, 2019
Christian Foletto summed up his feelings well and gave some good advice for Palace fans about choosing to get Palace news from other outlets.
This season I've chosen not to use skysports website anymore considering all the stuff they've invented this season on Zaha since the beginning of the transfer window. No more clicks from me. You should all think about it, there are other websites.
— Christian Foletto (@Ian_Foletto) September 21, 2019
This Norwich provided the sarcasm on the story and outlined the poor quality of journalism.
yes I'm sure Zaha publicly slated his palace team mates and told them to just get better sometimes. my goodness the sun are woeful 🤦♂️ pic.twitter.com/XWkrpoQ5ra
— River End Norwich (@RE_Norwich) September 21, 2019
Zaha himself responded to the twisting of the interview calling it ‘sad’.
😮 that’s me acting shocked that you and @TheSun twisted the words from a interview that was actually all positive .. sad really 🤷🏽♂️ https://t.co/sxmJfFb3Ag
— Wilfried Zaha (@wilfriedzaha) September 21, 2019
Recent incidents like this have rightly annoyed our fan base and the lack of knowledge from these media outlets about the club and Zaha in particular is laughable.
There have been previous incidents involving the tabloids making up stories too. The Sun compiled a fake story about Mamadou Sakho holding a team meeting to convince Zaha to give his all to Palace this season following the transfer window. Unsurprisingly, Andros Townsend confirmed that the story as an out and out lie.
The whole back page for something that categorically didn’t happen #FakeNews 🙈🤔 https://t.co/VkO7DVfkqm
— Andros Townsend (@andros_townsend) August 13, 2019
On all occasions, this lazy, poorly researched journalism is a disgrace and disrespectful toward both Zaha, the club and the fans and comes from mis-informed reporters.
The spinning of quotes also makes a mockery of the hard work by those at HLTCO who conducted the interview. The original interview is an absolute gem and deserves a listen to learn the truth about Zaha’s positivity towards Palace.