Duped! Or, putting the brakes on in time

I saw this little gem on Twitter earlier and thought: hoho, someone's duped the Sun! Lol innit?!

The story is by blogger "Idiot Forever" and is of how he sent an email to the Sun about an impending divorce due to Google Street View and they printed it in this story here and it was cobblers. All teh lolz.

Now as you know from earlier today I'm no fan of the Sun, and regard it as a home of crap journalism and all-round shiteness. So look, here's a story which confirms my prejudices - great!

But... it's too good to be true, I'm afraid, as some rudimentary fact-sniffing reveals. Idiot Forever claims:

I sent them a picture of the said offending street view. The email was boring so I’m not going to post it, but The Sun quickly responded. They thanked me for the information and asked me if I was Mark Stephens, the media lawyer. I shrugged (even though they couldn’t see me shrug) and basically responded “yeah, sure”.
Apparently I hit a streak of good luck. I got the name Mark Stephens from one of those internet random name generators and went with it. I guess Mark Stephens is a known media lawyer in Britain.

Mm, that would be the same Mark Stephens who wrote this story in The Times about Street View, which is clearly the real source for the Sun's effort...? Stephens in The Times:

Talking about away games, my divorce department has just received its first instructions based on a wife who spotted her husband’s Range Rover at a lady friend’s house, when he said that he was away on a business trip. The putative ex-husband has a singular interest in pimped-up hub caps that were apparently the identifying feature. I suspect the husband’s lawyers will consider bringing in Google as a third party to indemnify against its invasion of privacy that has cost a marriage and will cost him his Range Rover.

Hmm. Let's leave aside whether the Range Rover story itself is true or not for a moment (and we have no reason to doubt the real Mark Stephens). There is no Range Rover on the Google Street View image that Idiot Forever claims to have pulled out of thin air - at least not as far as I can see.

Anyway, the Sun story is simply a bit of churnalism harvesting the first-person Times piece and recycling it into a quote for its readers:

Top media lawyer Mark Stephens said: “I was talking about the Range Rover case when another divorce lawyer came up to say his firm was dealing with the same sort of thing. People are getting caught out on Google.
“I suspect the husband’s lawyers will claim it was an invasion of privacy that will cost him his marriage and Range Rover.”

And with the added bonus of asking readers whether they know the people involved so they can follow it up for a bit of cash. So nothing to do with Idiot Forever at all, then, unfortunately. I wonder what his game is? Maybe trying to catch people out who might dislike the Sun and find it a funny story, and who don't employ the same kind of fact-checking skills they would attack the tabloids for? Whatever, it just goes to show you can't be too careful, as David Mitchell would say.

The Sun and porn 'shame'

I love the balls of steel of the press. It's what makes them as entertaining as they are infuriating. And you can't help but adolescently chuckle when you see a headline like this:



Tee hee. Q good.

Hold on, though. Why on earth should watching a pornographic film be considered "XXX movie shame" by The Sun?

After all, masturbation is considered an important leisure activity for Sun readers, given that alongside the news and current affairs coverage of which it is so wrongly proud there are pictures of scantily-clad ladies - on page 3, posed for your viewing pleasure with their knockers out and some absolute nuts about "Ooh I don't know about all this global warming malarkey" drivel in a brightly coloured panel for your enjoyment while you're spluffing away. Wankers are quite the target market for the Sun, in every sense.

Why, then, so prudish all of a sudden when they're talking about Jacqui Smith's husband? Would it be better if he'd knocked one out to one of the Sun's Page 3 'babes' and then claimed a copy of the Currant back off expenses? Do you think they would have made a right old fuss about that and called it a 'shame'? No...? Then why is having an old-fashioned Tommy to a softcore porno in the comfort of your own home such a 'shame'? Where's the shame in that, for a newspaper that encourages men all over the country to buff the banana?

I'm not too snooty about this. You can't help but realise it's funny for a geezer to claim back a bit of knuckle-shuffle off his wife's expenses. That in itself is a bit of a farce. It's childish to chortle, yes, but it's a story. That it's part of a campaign to get at Jacqui Smith is the annoying part. Sack her for being illiberal; sack her for being wrong about a million and one things; sack her for being stupid; sack her for ignoring people who don't agree with her tabloid-friendly views; sack her for not giving a shit about destroying freedoms in the name of a 'war on terror'; sack her for all those things. But a bit of expenses silliness? Put it into perspective. If she goes, another New Labour cookie-cutter minister will get shunted into place, to do exactly the same illiberal, disgraceful things, just without the whiff of naughtiness attached. That won't change anything.

The Sun, meanwhile, has found a porn star with the same name as Jacqui, who sympathises with her husband; and there's also another porn star, who doesn't. So, intrinsically balanced, you have to say. And there are handy pictures of them not wearing many clothes in case all this talk of porn got you a bit tumescent. There are also stories today about a 'stunning PE teacher facing the sack after being spotted on net in skimpy undies', 'Brazilian babe Gisele' posing for a 'sizzling set of nude photos' and 'Leggy Jennifer Ellison showing off the bum that was voted the best in Britain'.

No 'shame' in any of that, obviously.

Littlejohn: Obsessed with Nazis and fascists, demeaning to women, a man with gay issues

I'm guessing the headline didn't really surprise most of you. But the 'Nazis' and 'fascists' are, interestingly enough, terms that Billericay Dickie applies to those he doesn't agree with, i.e. every single person on the left, or more precisely, everyone who has the slightest atom of compassion, humanity or decency - you know, giving a shit about other people. If you do that you're a fascist and a Nazi.

Let that sink in for a minute. If you disagree with one of the most right-wing columnists in the country, you are a 'Nazi'. If you disagree with one of the most right-wing columnists in the country, you are a 'fascist'. And we all thought that was left behind by right-on liberals in the 1980s. No. Littlejohn's appropriated that particular silliness for himself.

How do I know all this, you're asking yourselves. Is this all just supposition? No. Because I have some words to chill the blood to ice of anyone with a heart:

I've read through every article that Richard Littlejohn wrote in 2008

Good god. Why on earth would someone do that? Surely a braver person than me, that's for sure. Sometimes I can only get two paragraphs into Littlejohn before setting the Mail on fire, pissing it out and then doing a ritual dance around the ashes while flagellating myself with a large lump of asbestos.

No. This challenge was too great for me. The bouquets should be chucked in the direction of my fellow blogger Uponnothing, who has forensically gone through every single column written by our hero over the past year - a bit like Gillian McKeith peering at a series of turds in lunchboxes, but without the grating accent or the patronising irritation. Actually nothing like Gillian McKeith at all, and for all I know this blogger could be a real proper doctor with real qualifications and stuff. No, just keep the turd bit of the simile and you'll be fine.

Anyway, you must go there and read the audit. There are sections on awards, numbers and opinions so you can see for yourself how Florida's Britain's best-loved hilarious "Should be Prime Minister!" columnist weaves that straw into gold twice-weekly.

All I can do is hold out a hand of congratulation, and commiseration for having read all that shite.

Discredited, disappointing, disgraceful, dishonest

Let's talk about Andrew Gilligan first. There was a time when he was viewed as a scapegoat; journalists rallied around him as a comrade under fire when he brought out the story about a 'sexed-up' dodgy dossier that would lead to recriminations, resignations, Alastair Campbell sneering on the news, and David Kelly's death. The venom with which Gilligan and the BBC were pursued convinced many to imagine that Gilligan was 'one of them' - a fellow hack in need of protection.

But perhaps, looking back, the truth is a bit more prosaic. Perhaps there was no big bad scary pantomime-villain conspiracy to get Gilligan. Perhaps he was just crap at his job then, showing just the same kind of crapness he shows regularly now for the Evening Standard. Maybe he fucked up the story because he wasn't spectacularly good at his job.

Evidence that might point you towards that conclusion can be seen over at the Tory Troll today. You'll remember that last week Gilligan paid a visit to the Starlight Academy for two-and-a-half hours and asked dozens of questions which were all reasonably answered by people there. Now Gilligan would like us to believe that the Starlight Academy, which he knows is nothing of the kind, is some kind of tainted organisation, implying it doesn't do anything by the fact that it failed to return an email from someone pretending to be a student.

(Someone pretending to be someone else... hmm. Wonder where on earth Gilligan could have got that idea from?)

But Gilligan knows exactly what the Academy does, because he's bloody well been there and seen it with his own eyes. Why, then, make it seem - via the 'switched off' phone and the failed email return - that it's not doing anything? Why would he want to create an impression he knows to be false? Why not mention the work the organisation does?

I think there comes a point where you really have to wonder if it's gone beyond shoddiness.

Nick Cohen, meanwhile, thinks he's a reporter. He isn't. He also thinks he has a 'commitment to objectivity'. Has he ever read back anything he's written? I do see his point - that journalists and the editorial system provides some checks and balances - but he's not a reporter and he's not objective, and he's not the kind of 'blacksmith' he thinks he is. Here, though, is that commitment to objectivity in full. Is a world of bloggers so much worse than a world of Nick Cohens?

Speaking of journalists with a commitment to objectivity, I remember 'Ratbiter' in Private Eye angrily defending Policy Exchange when they were torn off a strip by Newsnight. I am sure that Ratbiter, as a reporter and a journalist with a commitment to objectivity, will be happy to report this week that Policy Exchange have withdrawn their report on the Hijacking of Islam and made an apology to one of the groups they wrongly smeared. Yes, I'm sure he will. I'm sure this news will make as many headlines in the right-wing press as the original report did. Yes, I bet it will.

World news now, and the new liberal-left President of the United States is polite enough to ask a sovereign nation before killing its citizens. See, that's progress, isn't it? "Would you mind awfully if we blew up a few people with a drone?" Yes.

In Brazil, a great big wall is being built to keep the poor away from the rest of us. And the world shrugs its shoulders and swallows all the guff from the G20 about how our system 'lifts people out of poverty'.

Finally, Buff The Banana offers 'something for the ladies' for once. But... as I mention in the comments, I wonder if it is just something for the ladies. You don't think that the Mail might be encouraging web traffic from *whispers* gay men, do you?

St George's Day approaches

...so that means the number of St George's Day lies will be ratcheted up by the scream sheets in the coming few days.

The story they want to tell is this: People are AFRAID of celebrating St George's Day because of POLITICAL CORRECTNESS and for FEAR OF UPSETTING MINORITIES but more particularly MUSLIMS who HATE US. They don't always need to come out and say this explicitly, because readers are pretty savvy creatures and know exactly how to join the dots.

Do you ever think they sit around the table in the Mail editorial conference and say: "Well, we appear to have accidentally misled a lot of people again. We haven't come out and said that Muslims have been attacking St George's Day, but somehow our readers appear to have gained that impression somehow. We need to be much more careful in future, lest we cause similar confusion in the future". I'm guessing not. I'm guessing it's not seen as a bad thing at all if readers get that impression, although I could be wrong of course. If the Mail and its friends really didn't want to give that impression, I think they would try a little harder not to; they could even try not to print a billion billion stories every bloody year about how St George's Day is the victim of political correctness when it isn't in the slightest. But no. It's quick, it's simple, it's cheap and you only need to change a few words from one year to the next; so here we go!

Over the coming weeks we'll hear from people who say they want to fly the flag of St George from some building somewhere but who can't FOR FEAR OF UPSETTING THE ETHNICS. We'll hear from columnists who decry the lack of English patriotism and national pride when England is compared to Scotland, Ireland or Wales, asking us to wonder why - perhaps with a handy picture of Muslim women in burkas (or as that bastion of satire Private Eye hilariously called them last week "Daleks" shouting "exterminate". Yes, I had to wipe away the tears of laughter as well as they poured down my face.) We'll hear about some survey somewhere that shows English people don't really give a flying one about St George's Day (the classical type being that they don't even know what day it is) and that this is somehow evidence of MULTICULTURALISM and its evil having pervaded our lovely white people.

Here's a good example in today's Mail, which has the bonus of being not only drivel from start to finish but also lumping Christianity in with St George's Day - not entirely unconnected things, of course, but on the other hand St George isn't in the Bible at all, which is kind of an important thing where that religion is concerned.

Bishops fear a backlash over St George's Day bell-ringing

yells the headline. It's actually an update of an earlier story, which you can find here, and which had a slightly more sober headline:

Only five of England's 44 bishops want the bells to ring out on St George's Day

Now, if you live near a church, you'll know that they aren't shy about using the bells. Oh no. Every ruddy Sunday. Random times during the week. Der-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding, repeat until brain vibrates into mush. Which is fine, and quite pleasant at a distance. My point is this: you do need bellringers to ring bells. They have to take time out to do it. They might not want to. They might be working. They might not want to ask the boss for time off work in a credit crunch to go bonging the bells on a random weekday because someone wrote a letter to the bishop. It's just a thought.

The second article is pretty much a copy-and-paste job from the earlier one, so we'll look at the first one first:

The lack of interest among senior clerics in England's patron saint stands in sharp contrast to London Mayor Boris Johnson's plan to hold a week-long celebration of St George in London, with traditional English music and poetry readings.

How nice of Boris to bravely do something which had existed for several years already, and which he was merely continuing rather than setting up, as he liked to give the impression he was, and which his fans in the tabloids blithely repeated because they couldn't give a shit to make a fucking phone to call to check a fact or anything like that. But yes. Good on you, Boris! You stick it to the PC dogooder leftie bastards, not like that England-hating cunt Ken!

Among those who supported Mr Johnson's initiative was Mail on Sunday reader and regular churchgoer Libby Alexander. In fact, she is so keen to celebrate St George's Day that she wrote to all Church of England bishops in February, urging them to take a lead by issuing a decree to churches to ring their bells on April 23.
One of the reasons church attendances had fallen, she told them, was 'the lack of assertiveness or confidence emanating from the top' and the 'strangulations of political correctness'.

Hooray! That's banged a big dinner gong for Mail readers. They know they're on the right side of this one now. And it's a nice, neat ready-packaged story for the Mail on Sunday which didn't require any original research from a journalist - citizen journalism at its cheapest finest. But what of this claim?

Only five out of the church's 44 bishops enthusiastically back the plan - and several are hostile, claiming it could be 'dangerous' and cause a backlash from other religious groups.

I'd like to see evidence of that.

The Bishop of Chester, the Rt Rev Dr Peter Foster, said: 'I agree the modern Church has a lack of confidence, but there would be dangers in reacting by putting on "public displays" of confidence.'

I don't quite see his point. What dangers? But that's left hanging in the air. Did he say more, that might qualify what he's just said? We'll never know because the Mail haven't found space for context.

The Bishop of Gloucester, the Rt Rev Michael Perham, said: 'I would find it difficult to make April 23 the principal day of the year in which church bells should ring out peals of joy. Getting together teams of ringers at midday would be challenging.'

So that's a purely practical point of view, there. Nothing about a backlash.

The Bishop of Portsmouth, the Rt Rev Dr Kenneth Stevenson, warned that if church bells were rung on April 23 'some secularists would claim the Church was imposing its beliefs and practices on the whole population' - though he was careful to add they would be wrong to do so.

Some people might well, and he'd be well within his rights to say they were wrong. But again, no 'backlash' from 'other religious groups'. Unless you call secularists a religious group, which they aren't. Come on, where's the bit about Muslims? Where is it? It must be in here somewhere.

The Bishop of Newcastle, the Rt Rev Martin Wharton, declared: 'It is not possible to arrange a peal of bells whenever we like.'

Another bishop explains the practicalities.

There was a haughty tone to the reply from the Bishop of Bradford, the Rt Rev David James, who rejected Mrs Alexander's call to issue a decree, saying: 'Let me enlighten you as to why I disagree. First, I would not be able to issue this decree with any authority. Second, I doubt there are enough ringers available. Third, some towers are not in a suitable condition.'

Ooh! Haughty!

But those are the only bishops quoted who were against the idea. No-one mentioned other religious groups, yet you could have sworn from the intro that they would have done. I love these conjuring tricks from the Mail. They make you think that something's there, even when it isn't. It's pretty clever.

The Bishop of London even says the following, which goes against the 'We hate St George's Day because of political correctness nowadays' narrative:

While I suspect it would be difficult to decree that bells should be rung in every one of our 16,300 churches, I have noted a gradual increase in the attention given to our patron saint in recent years.

An increase then, and not a decrease. At least according to a bishop. So that's something to shout about, isn't it? Er, no, because it's not the story the Mail want us to read.

Remember, not a single mention of Muslims in the article. And yet:

This country has been crippled by political corectness which seems to have spread to the church. It is St George's day, our day and we should be proud of it and celebrate it like the Irish and the Scottish do on their respetive days.
But in England you get called a racist and a xenophobe by your own government, while hate preachers are being paid benefoits and staying here even though they incite people to murder our own troops!
This country makes me sick to the core more often than not nowadays.

and

What about the Bishop of Oxford? He's keen on calls to prayer, no?

Yes! I bet he is! I bet he actually secretly prefers Islam to Christianity. I... oh hang on a minute, he's in favour of the idea. Shit.

Stuff the bishops. I want them to ring.

Shall we break into the churches and do it ourselves then?

These bishops really should stop worrying that religious 'minorities' do not want to hear the bells ringing on St Georges Day - most of them are quite happy for our customs to be celebrated alongside theirs. They really need to grow a backbone - nobody assumes a religion is being foisted upon them simply because it differs from their own.

I love the idea of the word 'minorities' being in inverted commas. To signify what - that minorities aren't really minorities? Or that by saying 'minorities' we're actually giving a nudge and a wink to what we really want to say?

And finally, a rather chilling comment:

The Church of England leadership is weak and becoming irrelevant. A pride is rising again for England; if anybody living in England doesn't like it then go and live somewhere else. The UK, especially England, is an oasis of cultural success in a sea of barbaric countries where life is still very very cheap. Many people come from those countries in search of safety; I am proud that we give them safety but have zero tolerance for them if they want to bring their broken way of life to my homeland. Integrate or emigrate.

Mm, lovely. Thank goodness for people like that, as opposed to those evil bastard bishops.

Marvellous things

Look at these jokers. Looks like a line-up of murderers from Inspector Morse shows, don't they? But no, in fact these crumbling fossils are the judges of the vanguard of new media. I'm not kidding. As Chris Dillow delicately puts it:

They seem to be precisely the sort of superannuated old ponces that blogging is a reaction against. Their belief that anyone of merit gives a damn about their opinion can only be a triumph of ego over evidence.

No wonder Dale got nominated by them. I imagine his dismal fare reminded them of Ovaltine and the Good Old Days rather than all those nasty bloggers saying Bad Things. Now put a fucking tartan blanket over the lot of them and forget about the whole sorry prize.

On the bewildering fondness of people to think of David "FOR FREEDOM" (lest we forget) Davis in being actually liberal/libertarian rather than merely opportunistic, David Semple says:

David Davis is leading the charge against the Secret Intelligence Service, by claiming that there is ‘a prima facie case to answer’ over the torture of Binyam Mohammed. Admirable though that may be, it is of course a political hitjob on the government penned under the rather patronising title, “We did things differently in my day, Mr Miliband.” The very title begs the raised eyebrow and sardonically toned question, “Oh did you really, you condescending bag of wind?” The answer to which is, unsurprisingly, no.

Alone in the Dark has more on the tea=cancer cobblers and other strange ontology in the weekly round-up.

Ben Goldacre on the irresponsible and unpleasant reporting of suicide. It's frustrating for journos, but it's a fact: tell people how to kill themselves and you may end up with dead people who might not otherwise be dead. No use thinking they'd've done it anyway. That just isn't right.

One for my fellow Bristolians last. The Bristol Blogger has a splendid takedown of a rather snotty load of old nastiness in my local paper at the weekend, which was basically a "Let's point and laugh at vegans because they're cunts" kind of article.

Oh noes! Hot tea gives you cancer! Eeek!

Thank god for the Mail giving you helpful advice to save you from the cancer-giving hotness of tea.

Oh hang on a minute, some rudimentary scientific curiosity (and real journalism) over here appears to show that they're talking absolute fucking bollocks.

NHS 1, Mail 0.

Links 27/3/9: Put that bloody light out

I don't know if there's ever been a more bum-clenchingly awful piece of television than the miserably pissweak cock-jousting drivel about blogging that was Derek Draper and Paul Staines on Andrew Neil's truly terrible politics vehicle yesterday afternoon. I can't watch it for more than 20 seconds or so before I get the urgent feeling that I need to shoot myself in the eyeballs with a paper stapler to make everything all right again. Can you? If you can, you're a better human being than me. Beau Beau D'Or has a particularly apt set of closing credits.

In one sense it's depressing that out of all the decent, intelligent, insightful bloggers out there, that it's the likes of Staines and Draper who manage to represent the medium. As I said yesterday, they represent blogging like John Wayne Gacy represents children's entertainers. Justin has a particularly withering attack on the self-important pair of preening boys - and has also threatened to quit blogging if Iain Dale wins the Orwell Prize. Which is highly understandable, given that Dale isn't very good either. Another reason out of the many million that already exist to hope Dale doesn't win.

Tim Ireland, meanwhile, wonders why Guido's promised document that proves that Downing Street have a 'get Iain Dale' policy hasn't materialised. I mean, you'd think the most self important blogger in the entire world, if he had such a document, would make it a available. Wouldn't he? And if not, why not?

Dale, Staines, Draper. Good god. Is that really what British political blogging's all about? Well thankfully not. I'm a bit more sanguine about things. That trio of turds is only what the MSM think blogging is all about. And they're entirely wrong. But then that's because they don't understand, they don't want to understand and they're never going to understand. And that's pretty much fine by me. They can carry on with their illiterate reading of new media as much as they want; I can find good blogs and other sources without having to ask their permission first. So let's have a look at some good stuff on the internet that (a) doesn't link to anything by John "different kinds of rape" Redwood and (b) doesn't have a picture of Alaistair Campbell's face anywhere near it.

First up is Adam Bienkov with a wonderful story about our old friend Andrew Gilligan preparing a hatchet job on a youth community organisation, only then to discover his plans completely and utterly blown out of the water when he went to see it himself. At least I hope they were blown out of the water - if he actually went on to try and slate the organisation, he'd be onto a hiding for nothing. Not that that's stopped him before, naturally.

Blogging the Mail looks at Stephen Glover, who writes such a slurry of execrable pish about the "I predict a riot" meme heading towards G20 and an expected "summer of discontent" that it's hard to believe he even agrees himself with what he's writing. Bonus points for Glover for claiming that chucking a stone at someone's window is the same as a Jihad. Oh yes, he actually says that. Can we try and shoehorn in some "anti-capitalist Taliban" references before the G20 kicks off? Please? I'm looking forward to it.

On the same subject, blogger Dungeekin also looks ahead to what might or might not happen this summer, and what it means. It's a fairly bleak analysis and I hope that it's wrong, though whether it is or not we'll just have to wait and see. I think it's probably true that ordinary folk who are fed up with the Government, or greed, or the destruction of civil liberties, and who want to protest about it, will simply be lumped in with 'anti-capitalism' and 'anarchy' just become part of some evil leftist plot.

The Quail has a good slant on the press's attitude towards rape, and how women are automatically assumed to be making it up or on the lookout for a compo payout. Because going through the ordeal of court testimony - under anonymity or not - is a right old picnic, isn't it? It's worth making the additional point that there are dozens of rape cases that take place all over the country every week, which are never covered by the papers (except the Daily Sport, and unfortunately that's for rather more sinister reasons that crime reportage). "Man rapes woman" isn't seen as being news. "Woman falsely cries rape" is a better story, and taps into an agenda that lurks not far below the surface. And remember Peter Hitchens, John Redwood and chums, and how they're not convinced that all rapes are necessarily as bad as each other. They're the voices in the media you hear about rape, not those of victim, or even women, come to think about it.

Here's an interesting blog. It's a guy who's decided to abandon the mainstream media, having seen so many cuts at the newspaper where he worked, and who's now setting up a nonprofit media organisation to serve the community. I really hope he manages to succeed in the venture and I think it'll be worth monitoring progress to see how he and his colleagues get on with it. It could be something you see coming to this country soon.

The Daily Mash has a nice feature on GCSEs and thick kids - sometimes it's hard to see where the tabloids stop and the satire begins. I'm reminded of the time a US commenter on Photoshop Disasters thought that the Daily Mail was "a bit like The Onion". Ah, if only.

Have a look at Norman Strike's blog, now we're in the 25th anniversary of the miners' strike. Plenty to enjoy there for a real bit of history.

The Lancet has slagged off Il Papa, which can only be a good thing, given that the mad old fool was talking utter lying shit.

Chris Dillow on whether the market really has given a damning verdict on Gordon Brown or not.

Nelson Valdes on how, when it comes to Cuba, any sort of nonsense can be put out by the media. And how it gets recycled, unchecked, by thousands of other news organisations as soon as it's out there.

Finally, if you haven't seen anything on it already, have a look at the WWF's Earth Hour event - and why not put that bloody light out tomorrow evening? Go on, you can watch Casualty in the dark.

Elsewhere

Tim's been writing polite letters to those editors who have used stories in the past from the now thoroughly discredited Glen Jenvey. I wonder what they'll say about it? We'll see.

Relatedly, Septicisle looks at the Sun's demand for the immediate arrest of Anjem Choudary, based on the fact he's committed the crime of... er, well, there isn't any specific allegation of a crime, but that doesn't stop the Sun wanting him to be arrested.

Andrew Adams on the new hero of the right - an immigrant postmaster (who is ironically therefore not British under James Slack's demanding criteria) who doesn't like people who can't speak English.

BenSix on the 'surge' in Iraq.

Sarah at Paperhouse on why she hasn't cancelled her Private Eye subscription just yet. I found the last issue pretty tedious - the Muslim women as Daleks saying "Exterminate" was unfunny and offensive rather than simply offensive, which is an important distinction to make; and 'Ratbiter' (who to be fair did have a bash at homeopathy the other week) was there with a weakly argued load of old crap next to an unfunny cartoon of a Muslim reading a newspaper entitled 'Hate'. But there's just about enough in there to keep me amused, I guess.

Sad news for Noel Edmonds fans - Noel's HQ, the execrable vanity project campaigning show which saw the TV meltdown of the century has been cancelled. Poor teh Noel. The bad news, I'm afraid to report, is that the fucker will be trying to tout this nonsense to other networks - I can just see the little weasel on Channel 5 on a Saturday night. And me not watching it.

And here's a bizarre story about a man being arrested under the Terrorism Act for taking a film of a 'non-tourist area'. What? I take it this is all in the name of freedom.

Meanwhile, let's have a little fun with some Mail predictions.

LITTLEJOHN: Makes pathetic Fawlty Towers joke about this hotel, which refused a gay couple (thanks to Will for the tipoff).
PHILLIPS: Gets up a head of steam about abortion services being advertised on TV (bonus points for mentioning 'abortion industry' or suggesting it'll be advertised during children's programmes).
HITCHENS: How the gay paedo mafia stopped Christians from being alive.
QUENTIN LETTS: Phwoarrr! Look at these sexy politician ladies! Much tastier than Harperson, innit lol rofl??!?!!? Oh hang on, sorry, my mistake, he's already done that shit.

Look over here...

The first Mailwatch post from me is up there - go and have a gander.

The PC Brigade: A very big tent

Dumb people are blaming David Jason saying sorry for a crap joke on the 'PC Brigade'. The PC Brigade? Really? Let's look at how the PC Brigade are composed in this instance:

- Mediawatch UK, the stridently anti-fun broadcast watchdog who get upset with virtually everything ever, including blasphemy, swearing, sex and just about everything else in the world, if it's shown on TV. See the skill Mediawatchwatch for more.

- The Ramadhan Foundation, whose values can be found here.

The PC Brigade is a very big tent, isn't it? Well, either that or dumb people ascribe 'PCgonemad' to things that are nothing whatsoever to do with political correctness. And are the Mail being entirely honest with us about this?

Sir David Jason forced to say sorry after making a 'racist' joke on live radio

Who said it was racist? The Mail haven't quoted anyone saying it was racist. The only people who thought it might have been racist were Jason's own PR team:

'He thought it was nothing more than a light hearted joke and doesn't see it as racist but is naturally very, very sorry that people did.'

Which people? I'm not saying no-one did, but who did? Some listeners to the radio station? Anyone? Do some listeners complaining to a radio station equal the PC Brigade? Must we also shove them into the big tent as well as part of the spectral secret organisation? Anyway, the Mail don't say that, so I mustn't put up a strawman - however, their readers do, for example this charming gentleman:

What a farce. I suppose it would be perfectly OK for a Pakistani to make a joke about a white englishman.
This is PC gone mad.
Roll on the revolution.

who lives in, let me see

- Tony ex pat, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 25/3/2009 11:49

a country which has a rather extreme form of Sharia Law rather than British democracy. I don't think he'd find it 'perfectly OK' to have freedom of speech where he lives. Though believe me, he's welcome to try. I think there's worse people in Jeddah than the PC Brigade, mind.

Also:

For God's sake, get a life. This PC nonsense is just going too far.

says

- David, Tenerife, 25/3/2009 11:51

of course. Of course he's not in the country where this broadcast happened, where it took place, where David Jason lives, where the PC spectre supposedly hangs over the country like a pall of fear.

Another point though: the Mail appears to suggest that Jason was 'forced' to apologise. Was he? Who forced Britain's best-loved actor, someone with enormous public warmth on his side and pretty much bulletproof when it comes to his image, into an apology? Why would he apologise for something he wasn't ashamed of... unless he actually was sorry about it?

Was he really forced? Is the PC Brigade - two pressure groups and some people who may or may not have phoned up a radio station or written to Ofcom (though they probably didn't) - really that powerful? Really? Or not?

That joke in full:

"What do you call a Pakistani cloakroom attendant? Me hat, me coat."

Don't think it's racist (which is probably why even the Mail couldn't find anyone stupid enough to go on the record saying it was). Is Mahatma even a particularly Pakistani term, though? I don't know myself. Is it offensive? I don't know that either. What I do know is that the Mail, as ever, knows how to light the blue touchpaper, just as they did yesterday. They know what they're doing, and as ever, their readers don't disappoint:

The well-established tolerance of the British is rapidly being eroded by these immigrants who want to impose their own practices and values on us.

Congratulations. That's definitely genuinely racist, unlike Jason's joke.

Although:

I look forward to daily mail readers condemning Sir David Jason as did for Jonathen Ross.

Haha! That comment got voted down considerably by fellow readers. Wonder why?

- Omar sheikh, Batley, West yotkshire,

Oh I'm sure that's not got anything to do with it.

What you didn't see in the Mail

The Mail likes complaints stories. It loves stories about people complaining about things - for example, about the BBC, when they cover the story of Jade Goody in far less detail and with far fewer intrusive photos than, erm, the Daily Mail.

The Mail also likes stories about tax. It covers stories about how our tax pounds are being spent, for example giving public sector workers a pay rise this year that's above inflation (accidentally not mentioning, of course, that last year's rise was well below inflation when private sector rises were on average well above it).

The Mail didn't quite find space today for a story about a private-sector employee freezing its employees' wages.

Or this protest organised against a well-known tax-dodger who is depriving the state of much-needed tax pounds at a time of economic crisis. This well-known tax-dodger, worth two-thirds of a billion pounds, is coincidentally the same person in charge of that company which recently decided to freeze its staff's pay.

With all those savings he makes from not paying his fair share of tax, you'd think he could pass some of it on to his staff.

Light the blue touchpaper...

...and retire to a safe distance, giggling. Don't tell me the Mail doesn't know what it's doing when it writes an article about the top 10 surnames in Britain. What is that top 10, by the way?

1. Smith 545,707
2. Jones 418,534
3. Williams 294,865
4. Brown 264,052
5. Taylor 253,481
6. Davies 214,263
7. Wilson 194,940
8. Evans 172,166
9. Thomas 159,402
10. Johnson 151,429

But as Frail Little Heart points out, that's not the story the Mail wants us to think about - they want us to think about those evil foreigners coming over here and overwhelming our surnames. Remember about 10-15 years ago, Patel, Singh and Khan were going to overtake Smith and Jones? Hmm, still haven't, have they?

Commenter "IK from North Wales" gets the ball rolling:

Are we supposed to be pleased about this? There is an inference that we were all immigrants the usual lefty pc stab at white caucasians whose northern european dna is considered to be worthless nowadays. Excuse me if I for one don`t feel anything other than a sense of loss and despair for the people of the northern lands whose contribution to culture and science has become invalid. We are a dying species.

There we are. The Mail knows how to poke its readers gently with the shitty stick to stir them into action.

Alone in the Dark, meanwhile, notices how the Mail's Liz Jones manages to miss the entire point of what she's talking about, yet still concocts several hundred bloody words of nonsense and somehow gets paid real money for it*.

No Sleep Til Brooklands was one of the bloggers who covered the Dunblane story and did a sterling job, so it's worth reading this follow-up. I have a feeling this may not be the last time that bloggers mobilise against the dead-tree press, who still fail to get it, no matter how hard they try.

Septicisle has a different kind of Jade Goody tribute. Don't get angry at it - he's made the point before that the media made an astonishing 'reverse ferret' when it came to Goody, turning her from the most pointless woman to have ever lived into a New Queen of Hearts (tm).

Terrorism next with Craig Murray. I saw the new posters as I came to work today - "these smiling white people are still alive thanks to someone shopping a shifty-looking geezer"; that kind of thing. The nonsense is on the radio too, asking us to be wary of terror and terrorists. Is there something the government know that they're not telling us? Is it the balance of probabilities or is all the publicity about something else, justifying ever stricter powers?

Speaking of more powers, police are getting more potentially lethal tasers, a story that doesn't fill Henry North London (or indeed me) with much hope.

If you haven't yet read the Guardian report on war crimes in Gaza (from the IDF and Hamas, before anyone starts chuntering away at the back there) then that's well worth a look. A lot more facts are trickling down into the public now. The thing is, do the public really care? Or has the passing of time detached us from the events?

And finally, this chucklesome story from every newspaper everywhere ever strikes me as smelling of bullshit. How did the kid get up there? How did he paint such an enormous cock and balls? Why isn't it magenta? Where are the bollock hairs? Where's the spray of ejaculate arcing through the air? Why is it so neatly drawn? Why didn't I do anything like this when I was 18? Why hasn't it faded away in the course of a year? Why has this story conveniently turned up at a time when Google Streetview stories are hot property? Answers on a postcard.

* I have no evidence that Liz Jones gets paid real money. It's quite possible they pay her in seashells, or buttons, or just give her somewhere warm to sit for a couple of hours, for all I know.

Fox News: So sympathetic to women that we'll stalk one to prove it.

You can file this one under "jaw-droppingly bad journalism".

Bill O'Reilly, who said this of a rape and murder victim:

Now Moore, Jennifer Moore, 18, on her way to college. She was 5-foot-2, 105 pounds, wearing a miniskirt and a halter top with a bare midriff. Now, again, there you go. So every predator in the world is gonna pick that up at two in the morning.

and this of a child kidnap and abuse victim:

The situation here with this kid is looks to me to be a lot more fun then when he had under his own parents. He didn't have to go to school, He could run around and do what he wanted.

has decided the best way to prove he actually does care about sex crime victims is to abuse his position, waste newsgathering resources and go and stalk a woman who dared to criticise him:

- The Stalking: Watters and his camera man accosted me at approximately 3:45 p.m. on Saturday, March 21, in Winchester, VA, which is a two-hour drive from Washington, DC. My friend and I were in this small town for a short weekend vacation and had told no one about where we were going. I can only infer that the two men staked out my apartment and then followed me for two hours. Looking back, my friend and I remember seeing their tan SUV following us for much of the trip.

– The Ambush: Shortly after checking into our lodgings, we emerged and immediately saw two men walking toward us calling out my name. Watters said he was from Fox News, but never said his or his companion’s name, nor did he say he was with The O’Reilly Factor.

...

– The Evasion: I said that it was inappropriate for O’Reilly to imply that just because a woman may be drunk and/or dressed in a certain way, she should expect to be raped. Watters asked me whether I had listened to the interview (which I had) and claimed that O’Reilly had made the comments in the context of a commentary on Mel Gibson/drunkenness. When I tried to ascertain why he was attacking ThinkProgress in particular — even though other sites had also covered the story — he said that we were part of the “smear pipeline,” which also included the “Soros-funded” Media Matters. He ignored my comments when I asked if Fox News also smears people.

This man is still employed by Fox News.

I like this. Do you like this?

Marvellous (click to make bigger/legible):



I found it here, while reading this article about the Dunblane/Express saga, which unlike the Graun or Press Gazette actually understands a little bit of what went on.

No wonder you've been struggling to pay the bills

Remember "Ooh poor me, I'm discriminated against for being white and middle-class and speaking English, although it's fair to say I do owe money and am therefore unfairly penalising other hard-working taxpayers who manage to stump up for council tax despite there being a credit crunch (OK, the last bit of that isn't really in there)" right-kind-of-immigrant-for-the-Mail Jonathan Hartman from yesterday?

Here's his showreel.

No wonder times are tough.

MSM: stuck in the dark ages

Sometimes you wonder why the mainstream media (I hesitate to use the term MSM, but that's quite catchy, isn't it?) are going down the toilet at a vast rate of knots. This article on Press Gazette gives a little clue, re the Dunblane apology from the Sunday Express.

As I mentioned yesterday, there were lots of reasons why the Express said sorry. I know that not everyone was in favour of targeting advertisers, but I don't see what's wrong with asking people what they feel about the juxtaposition of their products with really quite poisonous stuff. I've done it before myself when some of the stuff on the Express's website was horrible and racist.

Do Press Gazette mention bloggers like Tim Ireland, Adam Bienkov, Justin McKeating, Graham Linehan, the 10,000-signature petition against the Sunday Express, the thousands of people who joined the Facebook group in protest, all the other blogs who pitched in to the discussion and created a momentum of pressure against the Scottish Sunday Express?

No.

About 60 people complained to the Press Complaints Commission about the paper's 8 March splash, headlined: "Anniversary shame of Dunblane survivors: internet boasts of sex, drink and violence as youngsters hit 18".

Oh I see, it was those 60 people who complained, wasn't it? Even though if none of those people was directly affected (ie if they weren't the kids themselves) the complaints would have been instantly thrown out on a technicality. The Express must have run away scared at the thought of the industry-run toothless Press Complaints Commission having the power to do... er, nothing whatsoever. Yes, that must have been it.

See, this is why the MSM are falling off a cliff. I get the impression they really don't actually understand things. They live in their own cosy little world where it's forever the 1980s. The print unions have just been smashed and you can make 30% profit on turnover for ever and ever, because there's no competition from anyone else, because you've got the keys to the world and no-one else can afford to publish anything.

It's the desperate battle to cling on to those profit margins that's killing the industry. No-one's smacked these companies round the side of the head and said "Look pal, you're not going to make that kind of money any more. The good times are over." No-one's done it because that's taboo. Instead of trying to be realistic, they keep cutting jobs.

You might expect someone like me, who spends most of his spare time criticising the Mail's output, to be pleased at the news today that they're cutting 1,000 jobs. Not at all. If they do it, the others will do it, and the circle will carry on. Things are bad enough as they are, with desk-chained journos churning out dozens of stories a day, largely copied and pasted from unreliable press releases that never get checked for accuracy; it's only going to get worse if this continues. That's not good for journalism and it's not good for a free press. Corporate greed is killing mainstream journalism off.

And then what will we have left? No Daily Mail? You might think I'd be delighted, but I'm not. I'd rather we had a decent, accurate, honest and fair Daily Mail than none at all. At the moment we have neither, but I don't want to see them go under. I don't want to see any of these companies fall apart; and besides, it won't be the Mail who goes first - it could be the Independent, who offer a liberal-left (generally) view of the world. That's another of those voices gone, and even fewer remaining in the mainstream.

Blogs and other sources are filling the void left by quality journalism to some degree, but there's something that makes me wish the whole MSM would wake up and understand what's going on. People deserve more than a fuzzy logic world of information; they should be able to trust journalists to report things accurately and fairly. As I'm often saddened to tell you on here, that isn't always the case, and it appears to be the case less and less often.

Where do we go from here? Are the MSM doomed? And if so, should we care? I do care and I want them to stay. I want them to be good, as well. But one thing at a time.

Beyond parody

"I'm white and middle class and dress nicely and speak English, therefore I'm hated..."

No. You didn't pay your fucking bills on time, is all.

This is, by the way, another example of the Mail's stance on the right kind of immigrant, bearing in mind this and this.

Why did the Express say sorry?

I think it's important to look at the reasons why they took a great big custard pie in the face, to see if there are lessons to be learned for times when the tabloids misbehave as disgracefully in the future.

Did they apologise because they were wrong? No, they were wrong straight away. Surely colleagues of Derek Lambie and Paula Murray knew they were wrong - perhaps I naively have too much faith in journalists - would have voiced their concerns. The papers are often wrong; they often shrug their shoulders and do nothing about it, unless they have to.

Did they say sorry because of the threat of the PCC? Not entirely. The PCC can't actually do anything to hurt them, and besides, the Express offered a couple of letters in response as a 'right of reply', which the PCC regards as mitigation. They hoped the matter would end there with that feeble attempt to smooth things over.

Was it because of press coverage? No. The other boys and girls in the national press couldn't have cared less. There's a sense of 'there but for the grace of god' and 'You don't piss on your own doorstep' from fellow hacks. If someone else misbehaves, you don't call them out - besides, you might want to work there one day. That's why the Glen Jenvey saga hasn't received wider attention, despite being a demonstrably abominable example of pisspoor journalism combined with a hysterical racist agenda. Even those fellow journalists who disapprove just shake their heads rather than their fists.

What was it then? Well there was a time when you couldn't mobilise support for a campaign like the one against the Express. Facebook, Twitter and blogs - those things contemptuously dismissed by 'proper' journalists - weren't about; there was no way of connecting together separate angry people - they were just shouting in the dark, writing letters to the editor but not knowing how many others shared their views. Whatever you think of online petitions, and many doubt their effectiveness, the one against the Express gained 10,000 signatures in a very short space of time - they knew this wasn't going away.

It's a story that brings quite a lot of hope. Newspapers haven't learned it yet, but they will soon. You can't get away with it any more. People are watching. People are checking. And, more importantly, they can mobilise support against you very efficiently when you step out of line. And that's got to be a good thing.

Dunblane apology from Sunday Express

Not on the front page of the website, obviously, but here it is:

THE Scottish Sunday Express has enjoyed a long love affair with the people of our nation.
It is 81 years since the first edition of this great newspaper rolled off the presses in Glasgow.
Over that time, we have established a reputation for crusading journalism built on the twin cornerstones of honesty and integrity.
Scottish Sunday Express readers expect us to shine a light on the wrongs in our society, to expose the crooks, highlight the hypocrites and to give everyone the odd chuckle with the extraordinary stories that ordinary Scots so often have to tell.
We think we are pretty good at all that, and everyone involved in producing this newspaper takes pride in what we publish.
It is also hugely important to us that the Scottish Sunday Express reflects the feelings of the people of Scotland.
On March 8 we got that all wrong.
Our front-page story about the teenage survivors of the Dunblane massacre and their use of social networking websites has caused terrible offence, not only in that town, but across Scotland and around the world.
It is our belief that nobody was misquoted, but the story was undeniably inappropriate. It has upset the young people we named and caused great distress to their parents.
Where possible, we have spoken to the families involved and given them a heartfelt apology. Today we apologise to you, our loyal readers.
The Scottish Sunday Express is a big newspaper, with a long and illustrious history. We are also big enough to say we are truly sorry.

(not very) Quick links

These were going to be less quick than they are, but time is pressing a bit. There'll be something else later (probably Sunday now, come to think of it). So why am I even telling you? I'll get on with it, anyway:

Sarah Ditum on the new journalism and why the big boys still don't get it. That's a rather sad picture of all the discarded newspaper dispensers; but on the other hand, you could see it as punters voting with their feet and refusing to buy the same old crap. Who knows.

Ben Goldacre on the old journalism of not really understanding things properly but having to file one of 25,000 stories per day from your grubby desk with a deadline looming and so making as good a fist of it as you can, which turns out to be pretty pisspoor in the big scheme of things. Not just that, though, which is bad enough but understandable; also deliberately leaving stuff out that makes the story a wee bit more complicated than you think it deserves to be / your tiny-brained readers can understand.

Justin on why he's not doing backflips through flaming hoops just because Labour have decided to abandon a thoroughly illiberal and unpleasant piece of legislation that would have allowed bailiffs to hit people. As I've said before on a relatedly New Labour subject, it reminds me of that Chris Rock thing about "That's what you're supposed to do, you low expectation having motherfucker."

Here's David Neiwert on a nation of immigrants that treats immigrants like shit. The bleakest conclusion I can come to about all this is that we just shrug our shoulders about concentration camps for immigrants and asylum seekers in this country, too, while the tabloid press demands more and more.

No Sleep Til Brooklands has a perfect example of how Mail readers see the first couple of lines, find the sentence or two that confirm their prejudices and then go in all guns blazing in the comments. In this particular case, it's kids having different surnames - therefore, let's slag the entire family off! Because a two-year-old kid really deserves that, don't they?

Angry Mob has found someone in the world who thinks Lesbian Vampire Killers is anything other than dismal. They still only gave it three stars out of five, mind, so I might not be popping down the multiplex just yet.

Septicisle on more torture. Do you know I bumped into Jack Straw at a Labour conference many, many years ago - these were the days when he was considered not only an intellectual but also something of a radical. I've always wondered what the Jack Straw of then would think of the Jack Straw of now, if he didn't know he was himself - if you see what I mean. I'm guessing he'd make all the right noises about freedoms and civil liberties. If only we'd known.

More Nick Cohen news from Ben Six, after the neocon nonsensiphile got a bloody nose earlier this week. Who knows what wonders await us in the Observer tomorrow (today) from the maestro? I certainly won't be finding out, that's for sure.

Johann Hari on the revelations about Operation Cast Lead. And here's a cheery image over at Lenin's Tomb, on the same subject.

And that's it really. That wasn't quick at all, was it?

The Mail and Gemma Arterton. And pants.

(or Whoops! they did it again)

Whoops!

It's the kind of thing you say when you drop a fondant fancy down the back of the settee, isn't it? Whoops! It implies a kind of, oh I don't know, accidental quality, as if you didn't really intend to do the thing you just did, but that you're trying to make light of it.

For example, let's say you had a giant camera - a really enormous camera - and you hung around waiting for famous women to get out of cars, and when they did get out of those cars, you pointed that enormous camera at them in the hope of photographing their pants - or maybe even their genitalia - and then you took a photo of their crotch, and you could see their pants... let's say you did all that. Could you really consider that accidental, would you think? Could you really say "Whoops!"

Whoops! Gemma Arterton lets slip that she wears control pants with inelegant exit from car

Whoops! The Mail accidentally, unintentionally, serendipitously as it turns out, got a photo of Gemma Arterton getting out of a car - the kind of 'upskirt' business that used to be regarded by Fleet Street as somewhat, oh I don't know, downmarket. But that kind of quality control has long since gone down the toilet. Have we got pictures of some celebrity's snatch? Hooray! That fits in with our Daily Mail brand values as a family newspaper.

As a size ten and proud of it, Gemma Arterton has long said she sees no need to play the showbusiness weight game.
But it looks like her refusal to give in to the image police only stretches so far.
The 23-year-old James Bond actress has joined the likes of Kylie Minogue and Gwyneth Paltrow by getting a little extra help with her curves - courtesy of Spanx control pants.

Arterton... Arterton... name rings a bell. Where have I heard that name before?

Maybe Gemma who recently ended a six-month romance with her Spanish stuntman boyfriend, has been consoling herself in the time honoured fashion - with a comforting tub of ice-cream or two.

Oh, it's coming back.

The 22-year-old actress appeared at the Orange British Academy Film Award nominations looking distinctly jowly, as she posed up before making the announcements.

Ah yes. She may be 'size 10 and proud of it', but unfortunately the Mail aren't proud of her. Katie Nicholl at the Mail did say

There were catty comments after a snap appeared of Gemma Arterton sporting a double chin but, as befits a Bond Girl, the stunning 23-year-old actress has come out fighting.

failing to mention that the 'catty comments' in question came from her one of her own colleagues... but having decided Arterton was too chubby, then 'You go girl!', the Mail is back in the 'Fatty' camp for this latest article, declaring:

The pants, which sell for between £20 and £50 a pair, hold in the bottom, thighs and stomach and, in normal circumstances, are virtually undetectable.
On this occasion, however, their supporting role was hard to miss as Miss Arterton made a rather clumsy exit from her car as she arrived at a Missoni fashion party in London.

How "clumsy" of her, to have expected someone not to have taken a photo of her arse while she's getting out of a car!

A bit odd, though, that the Mail should clutch the pearls and look down the pince-nez at Arterton for wearing pants, seeing as they've written rather favourably about them in the past. The Mail called them 'a godsend for the pear-shaped British woman' and even offered a guide to the 'best invisible knickers'. Surely not a bad thing, then? Ah, but while Mail readers are allowed to use such items, celebrities, it seems, are not, as we saw when Lily Allen dared to purchase the undies herself:

The 23-year-old singer was spotted driving away from celebrity restaurant Nobu dressed in a sleek black dress, and a pair of Spanx control stockings in the back seat.
The body forming stockings and control pants, which sell for between £20 and £50, hold in the bottom, thighs and stomach are are virtually undetectable.

'Virtually undetectable', that is, unless there's some bastard with a camera taking photos of you all the time so that some witless drone at a keyboard at Northcliffe Towers can take the piss out of you. The Mail never mentions that in all its stories about 'magic knickers', does it?

He looks a bit fed up for some reason, doesn't he?

Thank goodness the papers are there to give us the scoop on the vital news stories of the day. It turns out - and I really wouldn't have known this had there not been photographic proof to show me and my tiny brain - that someone whose wife has recently died is, well what do you know, not entirely delighted with the world at large. Who'd have thought it?

Thankfully those caring souls at the national newspapers have got the inside track, capturing the moment of misery and pain for the whole world to see. Because probably the first thing you'd be thinking under such circumstances would be "I really hope there's a bloke pointing a camera right into my face so that everyone in the world can see exactly how terrible I feel". Wouldn't it?



Don't get me wrong, by the way. This isn't about the Express, because they're certainly not the worst offenders when it comes to this story, although they did deem it necessary and crucial to our understanding of the nature of grief that we should see a grief-stricken person in glorious colour. There's worse out there:



It's nice to know, isn't it, that when your family is going through agony, that there will be people sticking cameras right into your face and making sure that you don't get a moment's peace as you try to deal with the shock and dismay at what you have recently been through. Of course I am only guessing at what this person is going through, of course, but why bother guessing?



I just don't see what we learn from any of this. Yes, I should imagine he is rather unhappy with the world. Yes, he is famous for being in films, but he isn't in a film now: he's in that bit in between films called real life, where sometimes there are things that happen which are so painful that other people need to take that into consideration - not exploit your grief to flog a few papers behind crocodile tears.

Mail takes the moral high ground over Jade Goody

OK! magazine could face official inquiry after publishing 'sick' Jade Goody tribute issue

they roar today.

Jade Goody fans are furious after OK! magazine published a tribute edition to the dying reality star even though she is still alive.
This week's copy of the magazine carries a black border, the banner 'Jade Goody Official Tribute Issue 1981 - 2009' and the strapline 'In Loving Memory'.
The Press Complaints Commission has now received 130 complaints from members of the public, rising from 60 yesterday.

Funny how we never hear about complaints regarding the Mail in the Mail, isn't it? And how they don't explain that unless those complaining are directly affected (ie are relatives of Goody) their complaints will be instantly rejected and cannot be considered - meaning there will be no 'official inquiry'. But then, who is it who was until very recently the big cheese at the PCC? Why yes, it was Paul Dacre. Who happens to be editor of...? Exactly.

Did the Mail consider 'Jade Goody fans', then, when it printed this?



Or this?

I have nothing against Jade Goody: it would be odd to feel anything other than sympathy for any mother dying so young. But that doesn't take away from the fact that she has achieved little of lasting merit in her short life.

So it might be appealing to try and take the moral high ground, but it's an absolute nonsense. And seeing as the Mail themselves print in this very article saying how bad OK is, a picture of Goody's mother with the magazine, it doesn't seem she's devastated with it, does it? And it's not as if the Mail have balked at printing pap photos intruding on people in moments of private grief either, is it?

So, let's cut the crap. The Mail are upset because OK got the scoop. That's the top and the bottom of it. So let's drop the bullshit, shall we?

Friday links 20/3/9

Graham Linehan says there could be an apology in the offing over the Sunday Express Dunblane debacle. They've held out for a long time but it looks like they might finally be about to crumble. Which is good news. But we'll see if there's any assurance this is genuinely regretted, rather than contrition through gritted teeth at having been caught out and the issue having been kept alive by 'mass bloggers'. I hope there is some genuine sorrow about something so shoddy.

On related matters, Tim Ireland is politely asking Paula Murray's friends why they're so upset about having their faces on the internet:

Vague signals that may or may not mean "I only care about myself" don't count; if you're going to be a selfish hypocrite about it, just say so, and I'll happily sort it right out. Seriously. Tell me on what grounds you want the relevant image(s) removed, and I will most likely remove it/them, regardless of what you say.
Doing things in this way at least gives me a chance of determining if innocent victims are involved, or if I've merely inconvenienced a bunch of self-centred wankers.

Which seems fair enough, doesn't it?

Justin reminds us it's six years since 'shock and awe' brought death and destruction to Iraq.

Relatedly, Craig Murray will address the Joint Committee on Human Rights. He will talk about Jack Straw. And this country's support for torture. Murray says:

It is likely that I will face hostile questioning from government supporters and from "War on Terror" hawks. In the past the government has accused me of corruption, sexual blackmail, and alcoholism (all completely untrue) and hinted that I am insane, in an effort to deflect attention from the cold facts of my testimony.

Going off at a tangent a bit, I wonder what the new caring/sharing Alastair Campbell would make of such things? I'm sure as someone who now claims to care about mental health issues he'd be devastated to learn of someone in the public eye being smeared in such a way - it reminds me of a previous occasion when a person who was thrust into the media spotlight was described as being a 'Walter Mitty figure'. Remember that?

Septicisle looks at the crumbs of comfort to be had from Barclays' legal win over the Guardian newspaper. Of course all the stuff is on Wikileaks if you want to find it (I don't think it's a good idea to link, but I'm sure you're all clever people) but that's not good enough - people are allowed to avoid tax, get away with it, and use the money they've saved through their dishonesty and unethical behaviour to prevent details of it from going public. Surely this isn't a good thing, is it? Is that really what we want from our justice system, to protect tax avoiders?

Speaking of tax avoiders, Dave Marsh is sad to report that Bono isn't going to be engaging in a debate with him. That's a pity, because it would have been fun. It might have been a bit of a one-sided fight, but it would have been fun.

Alone in the Dark looks at a truly baffling piece from Keith Waterhouse. Is it me or are these fantastically remunerated columnists looking less and less relevant as time goes on? It's not just the Mail, although they have more than their fair share - Littlejohn, Phillips, Hitchens P, Hastings, Jones, Pearson - but I think the time has come for journalists to stop looking down their snotty little beaks at bloggers and imagining that there's some inner circle of genius that allows them to weave their voodoo to bemuse and delight the plebs. It's nonsense. The pros aren't often much better or worse than the rest of us. They've got more time to consider their pieces - dare I say research them? - but all too often it just seems like they're tossing off a couple of hundred words in between yawns.

Angry Mob, meanwhile, looks at this:

On the 3rd March Lucy Elkin produced a two-page spread entitled: Why can't we love our bodies? Nine women reveal how they REALLY feel about their figures.

compared with this:

As she made an entrance on a swing at the weekend, the pop princess seemed unconcerned about the danger of being seen from an unflattering angle.
It was a stark contrast to the opening night of the tour when she showed off an enviably toned stomach.

And finally there's this from Peter Roebuck about the future of cricket, which I read a few days ago but which I forgot about entirely. It's one of the better articles about sport I've read in a while, rather thoughtful, so it deserves an outing. A good quote is here:

Till a notably cosmopolitan Sri Lankan team was attacked as they made their way to the ground in Pakistan, progressives had not understood how much offence they had given. How they celebrated when Graeme Smith embraced Makhaya Ntini at the SCG. How we rejoiced when a Muslim was invited to captain India, a black man put in charge of West Indies, and a Tamil hero worshipped in Sri Lanka! West Indies nowadays contains a white man and several players of Indian extraction. England fields several players of Asian and African extraction. Things seemed to be going in the right direction. To the warped, cricket's success was unacceptable. It had to be punished.

Why this isn't about a 'bad apple'

Say what you like about Paula Murray, but it's important she doesn't get demonised by the whole Sunday Express/Dunblane affair.

It might sound a bit odd, that, coming from me, given that I was one of the first to talk about the atrocity of an article that appeared in the Scottish Sunday Express those couple of weekends ago. But I think there's a valid point to be made to try and stop this being seen as a rogue article by a 'bad apple'. Because I don't think it was.

The petition is about to get over 5,000 signatures, thanks in no small part to the issue being promoted by this excellent article from Graham Linehan.

But so far, no apology. If this were a rogue article by a bad apple, surely someone somewhere in the organisation with some authority over these matters would think that it merited an apology. Wouldn't they?

What of Murray's line manager, Scottish Sunday Express editor Derek Lambie? He is on record as blaming 'mass bloggers' for all the fuss about the article, rather than considering that the article itself may have been a disgraceful stain on all those employees who would rather not insult murder victims and tragedy survivors. As Tim Ireland points out today, Lambie wrote about the Dunblane tragedy many years ago and said it would never be forgotten.

So you have to consider that Lambie either thinks the article was acceptable (and give it was the front-page story, presumably at the very very least he had an idea what it would contain before it was published, if not having actually read it himself) or he now regrets it but feels painted into a corner by we 'mass bloggers' and the several thousand people who have registered their disgust in the online petition.

What do they think higher up the food chain? Is there any evidence that anyone higher up at the Express was appalled by this? Not so far.

So can we really dismiss this as a 'bad apple'? Or a rogue story that somehow got out of hand?

Certainly not until and unless there is an apology. And until that happens, the only conclusion to draw is that the Express approved then, and approves now, and thinks the story was justified. I wish the PCC had the power (or will) to actually do anything about this, but I don't think it will.

And nor should it. Anyone with a soul should be able to see that a terrible error has been made. Anyone with any nous should be able to see that at the very least an apology should take place.

If not, this is no one bad apple. This is an organisation that is rotten to the core.

My eyes!!!

You may want to ask children to leave the room before you look at this:



BBC caption: "How Clough might look in an office setting."

Yes, if he (a) woke from the dead, (b) grew an unfeasibly giant head that towered over his tiny body and (c) bought an equally enormous flat cap.

Aaaargh!

Time to get angry

I mentioned the other day that I was experimenting with pretending to be right-wing but not agreeing with anything right-wing, in an attempt to understand those allegedly left-wing commentators who spend their entire careers decrying every single thing on the left ever.

A good (good?) example of this phenomenon is Nick Cohen, who has the ability to argue things cogently and interestingly, whether you agree with him or not; but who when he's bad is absolutely ruddy terrible, offensive, unpleasant, sloppy and downright embarrassing. Sunny Hundal and Sunder Katwala have responded to a truly shambolic article from Cohen, who does his cause no good whatsoever by such dismal journalism, supposition and downright nonsense in direct contradiction to the facts.

Speaking of awfulness, I read a truly awful article the other day, which BenSix looks at here. James Delingpole is so hopelessly wrong and vile but carries the same kind of bombast and bravado that made the likes of Littlejohn famous.

Aaron on the grimness that is the 'First!' attitude by OK magazine over Jade Goody. And speaking of Desmond's empire, here's the petition about the Sunday Express Dunblane story.

A Very Public Sociologist on an anti-EU group within trade unionism. What to think about it...? Is it more palatable than UKIP? Well obviously, but is the EU an issue that will divide the left (again) as much as it's divided the right?

I Am Calm asks what's so great about Britishness anyway? My favourite bit:

Can you imagine if Spanish businesses on the Costa del Sol started demanding people speak Spanish or get the hell out? Or all those lardy ex-pats in Dubai were thrown out of the Four Seasons because they didn't know the Arabic for 'another beer and where's the buffet?'. Good grief, the Brits would be on the first plane home en masse. (Oh, I keep forgetting, that's the idea.)

And Lenin says it's time to get angry.

For heaven's sake Jenvey, just give up

Glen "Abuislam" Jenvey's latest idea to get out of the world of trouble he's dug himself into is to smear Tim Ireland as a paedophile.

It's touchingly naive of people like Jenvey that they don't understand how stuff on the worldwide web can be traced and audited. It's a good thing, for now, that they're not sly enough to avoid it.

What a grubby old business from start to finish. He's ruined.

Time to end the 'Taliban' nonsense

Adam Bienkov reports on one of the latest right-wing memes - anyone who says anything you disagree with can be dismissed as 'Taliban'. Bearing in mind what the Taliban actually are and were, it's a pretty shoddy comparison. But then this is the war against political correctness and people who care about climate change, and so it seems that anything, no matter how putrid, goes. If you have one lot of people barking 'fascist' on one side and another lot barking 'Taliban' on the other, it's pretty embarrassing. Well it would be for Boris, if he had any shame.

Septicisle looks at the beyond-parody ineptitude of the Fritzl trial reporting, something which wouldn't be allowed in its form this country because of common-sense victim protection laws. The tabloids have taken their usual stance - do whatever we can get away with, regardless of the ethics - and the result is fairly seedy.

Ben Goldacre of Bad Science reports on Lloyds Pharmacies and carbon monoxide detectors, and more pertinently how the churnalists were happy to ctrl+C and ctrl+V everything they were told without questioning it. Hurrah for the Fourth Estate.

David Semple has some interesting ideas about long working weeks and why the left often seems to be on the back foot when discussing certain issues.

Chris Dillow has some ideas on unemployment and what to do about it, which will be entirely ignored by the national press in the scrum to blame Gordon Brown and point fingers and generally stand around yelling a bit. Looking forward to reading the same article again and again and again later.

The Quail brings news of the exciting power of mushrooms.

And Tim Ireland has spotted that Paula Murray's Wikipedia page has been edited by someone at the Express - to distance the London-based Daily from the Scottish Sunday edition only.

The Mail: Likes migrants, doesn't like them being barred entry

Eh? But yes.

And ah yes, now it becomes crystal clear. Because this is a good migrant, a British person, attempting to migrate to Australia and finding herself up against the need to take an English test. The Mail rails against this 'politically correct' nonsense.

Hang on a minute. Where have I read something like that before? Ah yes, it was in the Mail, where a test for migrants was not seen as 'politically correct' at all, but was rather portrayed as disgracefully simple:

The test that's letting in one migrant every three minutes (and could you pass it?)

screamed the Mail back in January 2008, with a James Slack special. Readers were upset that the test was too stern and was letting in too many of those foreign types:

We are now in the fast track towards losing our country. This mass influx must end now! Or we can quite honestly say goodbye to the Britain we have always known, cherished, fought for. If the government won't listen to the vast majority of British people's worries about this situation then goodness knows where it will take us.

But this should come as no surprise to us, because as we've seen before, the Mail is often sympathetic towards migrants - if they're the right type of migrant, naturally. A surprisingly high rating, though, comes up for this comment below the 'nurse English test' story:

She should be thankful that they're considering letting her work over there at all. The hypocrisy of people who moan about foreigners coming to work here but who then themselves go and demand to be let into another country is staggering.

Staggering, yes, but not entirely unpredictable, if you read the Mail.

Say what?

After hanging Paula Murray out to dry yesterday, Tim Ireland has now done the same for Glen "Abuislam" Jenvey and his associate Michael Starkey. If anyone from the Sun reads that, it's worth pointing out: that's what journalism is. It might take a bit longer than five minutes and a Google search or a call to MigrationWatch to dig up the information, but you kind of actually get the real story at the end of it. Which is a good thing.

Angry Mob follows up the latest from the Mail in the war against Islam. It's getting noticeably worse and I can see the Mail sliding down towards the Express route of out-and-out racism. I really don't want it to because, much as I can't stand the Daily Mail, I'd much rather it was a good newspaper with good journalism, rather than a bad newspaper with bad journalism. Which is what it is becoming more and more with every passing day.

Let's be fair, though; it's not just the Mail: the Sun are just as capable of tapping into hatred, fear, suspicion and racism as their more upmarket rivals, as Septicisle reveals. It's a classic far-right meme which you see time and time again - I don't see Muslims out protesting against murder, therefore they are all terrorists and must all secretly agree with it. That's about the top and bottom of it. It's depressing that such a wilfully dumb argument could be wheeled out in the national press, but no, it is, and not just by Kavanagh either.

Ugh. Enough of all that. Here's George Monbiot, always a good read, explaining why dealing with climate change before it happens, no matter how difficult that's going to be, is going to be easier than dealing with it afterwards.

Pickled Politics reports that the Mail has run out of stories. I say: more stuff about pigeons with bagels round their necks and fewer scream stories about immigration and race, and I'll be happy.

Aaron, like me, thinks Stuart Lee's Comedy Vehicle was bloody great last night. Best thing I've seen on TV in ages - Chris Moyles's friends not wanting to ask him what his book's about, and trying to describe rappers in the style of my dad, were just two of the highlights.

And news for Bristol folk that we now have one good newspaper in our city. That's something.