David Ornstein is widely recognized as one of the most reliable football reporters around the world. Once he reports an exclusive, it hardly takes much for that to be confirmed. A former reporter for the BBC, he’s now one of the senior-most figures for The Athletic’s UK division.
He worked for 12 years for the BBC before being roped in by The Athletic in 2019 and has been working for them since.
The Englishman has kept The Athletic’s reputation in check by only reporting accurate exclusives and stories that are bound to be confirmed. He was on fire in the 2023 summer transfer window, breaking a number of transfer stories and delighting fans.
Some even derived the term ‘Ornstein Bomb’ because of how spot-on his reports were. Ornstein has used his years of experience to link up with some top-level sources, usually agents, to ensure that his reports are never refuted.
With that being said, Ornstein has also inadvertently become an icon among Football Twitter or on social media with his takes. Due to his increasing reputation, the Englishman has been able to appear on shows and podcasts like Rio Ferdinand’s ‘Vibe with Five’ YouTube show.
This does now, however, change the fact that Ornstein is a football journalist first rather than a social media personality. Weirdly, in the recently-held 2023 Football Content Awards in the UK, Ornstein was labelled as an ‘influencer’ for some reason.
An influencer is defined as a person a person who has a large following on social media and is known for their expertise on a topic. They can promote products and services for a brand or share information to persuade others
Ornstein has not exactly done that, apart from the occasion promotion of The Athletic’s subscriptions.
But that doesn’t really warrant him as an influencer and the Englishman has never behaved like one either. Ornstein was still among the nominees for the ‘Best Influencer’ award along with some other well-known social media personalities and journalists.
Fabrizio Romano ultimately won the award, but the likes of The United Stand’s Mark Goldbridge or Tottenham Hotspur fanatic Expression Oozing were also among the nominees.
The likes of YouTuber Thogden and Chunkz were also nominated, but at least their nominations made sense. They act like actual Influencers and can influence people with their videos, unlike Ornstein, who just reports straight facts which is his job.
It is his responsibility as a reporter to break big-time stories and give the fans some transfer news ahead of the rest. He never acts in an over-the-top fashion like any influencer nor does he do any real self-promotion on social media.
Fans are surprised that Ornstein is even among these nominees and believe that he will probably be glad to lose out on this award.
Some are disgusted that the reputed journalist is being associated with some of these crazed, attention-seeking YouTubers or ‘Influencers’ and that his reputation is being dragged down with it.
Like De Niro being nominated for the soap awards
— Chris Roberts (@chrisrobbo2005) November 16, 2023
Only one there that doesn't want to win it
— Albie (@RuralAlbtraum) November 16, 2023
Ornstein probably doesn’t really care much about this nomination anyway because he’s just too focused on doing his job as a journalist. He’ll continue to work in private to get all the best stories for fans going forward and maintain his reputation as the reporter whose exclusives or stories almost never turn out to be wrong.
