DON'T shoot the messenger may only seem like a saying - but it's brutally, literally true for far too many journalists around the globe.
Not just in 'the developing world', or under recognised dictatorships either. The UK had a very recent Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, who was complicit in a planned assault on a journalist – despite being one himself, at least nominally.
The previous – and, God forbid, perhaps the next – President of the USA, Donald Trump, also fomented and encouraged attacks on the media.
Saudi Arabia kills journalists. So do other countries, with intimidation of the media notoriously high in Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine, to name but three other states.
We in the NUJ here never forget Martin O'Hagan.
So it was disappointing that Liverpool FC manager Jurgen Klopp pointed the finger at journalists over Qatar being allowed to host the imminent football World Cup.
Klopp had a valid point when he complained about players and manager being put in an invidious position: "I don't like that players, from time to time, get in a situation where they have to send a message…
"Now we are telling the players you have to wear this armband and if you don't do it you are not on their side and if you do it you are on their side.
"Players go there and play to do the best for their countries. I see in the news all the time 'How does it feel to be here?' It's all not ok for the players…
"How it happened in the first place was not right. But now it's there, just let them play the games.
"Don't put Gareth Southgate constantly in a situation where he has to talk about things. He's not a politician, he's a manager of England.
"If you want to write something else about it then do it, but do it by yourself rather than just asking us and all these kind of things - 'Klopp said' and 'Southgate said' - as if it would change anything. We all, you more than I, let it happen 12 years ago."
That last contention is unfair, however. Especially when the Liverpool boss claimed: "You are all journalists, you should have sent a message. You didn't write the most critical article about it - and not because it is Qatar and things. No. About the circumstances, which was clear."
Perhaps I'm overly influenced by the media I read, but I know that the Guardian and the New York Times have been strong and consistent in their questioning and criticism of the tournament behind held in Qatar. Those are only the outlets I regularly look at; I have no doubt many others, online and in print, have queried how and why the World Cup is going to a tiny, oil-rich state on the Arabian peninsula.
It has been repeatedly reported that the Fifa Executive Committee which voted to give this World Cup to Qatar – and the previous one to Russia – was significantly corrupt, with many of those who gave it their backing having subsequently been expelled from Fifa and/or punished in court.
Back in 2004 it was the actions of Qatar, in fast-tracking the citizenship of three Brazilian players, which forced Fifa to change its eligibility requirements.
Having failed to buy a better team, just six years later Qatar bought the 2022 World Cup.
The Club World Cup was held in Qatar in both 2019 and 2020 – with Klopp's Liverpool winning the tournament on the first occasion.
There was little outcry then, but that's because the actual World Cup is a much, much bigger deal than the Club version.
However, I don't recall Klopp complaining about Qatar being the venue.
Sure, members of the media could boycott this World Cup – but so could players and nations.
Instead, mirroring those Fifa delegates and the people who run the global game now, money is being put before morality, before even simple common sense.
It's utterly pathetic that certain English and Welsh fan groups have agreed to effectively take bribes to provide positive publicity for this tawdry tournament.
Qatar has also been pumping money to compliant British MPs, just over £250,000 in the year to October; many of those, surprise surprise, went on to praise Qatar or speak up for its interests in the House of Commons.
The UK Foreign Secretary, James 'Not So' Cleverly, urged any visiting LGBTQ+ supporters to show "a little bit of flex and compromise" in a country where homosexuality is still illegal.
Cleverly and his Conservative party care far more about arms sales than the treatment of their own citizens.
Fifa too are more interested in making money than looking after the welfare or players, never mind supporters.
People should be queuing up to buy tickets for a World Cup which will involve little internal travel, held during a time of 'winter sun' for those from the northern hemisphere.
Instead, the Qatari hosts are having to bribe their own citizens to attend matches.
The World Cup should never have gone to Qatar, for so many reasons: its poor human rights record, its appalling treatment of migrant workers, its lack of football history, the fact that the blooming tournament can't even be played there in its usual summer slot.
Members of the media have made those arguments for more than a decade.
They are not the culprits in this, no more than the players and managers are.
It's easy to attack journalists. 'Keyboard warriors' often do it.
Bullies all over the world do it, simply because they disagree with what the media have written, said, or shown, even when – often especially when – it is the truth.
