AA Gill: a great advert against a Times subscription
I've only just caught up with AA Gill's pathetic comments about Clare Balding, via this excellent post at the F Word.
Gill is one of those casually offensive controversy-seeking professional trolls who spend their lives dancing around the boundaries of what's acceptable and what isn't. And occasionally not giving a shit about it:
Some time ago, I made a cheap and frankly unnecessary joke about Clare Balding looking like a big lesbian. And afterwards somebody tugged my sleeve to point out that she is a big lesbian, and I felt foolish and guilty. So I’d like to take this opportunity to apologise. Sorry.
Now back to the dyke on a bike, puffing up the nooks and crannies at the bottom end of the nation.
Yeah, hilarious. Sunday Times editor John Witherow wrote to Balding after she complained, essentially saying "You lot don't have special victim status, you should just get on with it". Which is entirely disingenuous and misses the whole point about abusing someone because of their sexuality. Calling someone a 'dyke' and chortling about 'nooks and crannies' isn't worthy of the playground, let alone a national newspaper shoved behind a paywall because it's so damn good you're going to want to pay to read it online.
Is it really acceptable to call someone a 'dyke' and snigger about their sexuality? I know AA Gill's TV reviews are rather baroque constructions, but this kind of monstrosity seems superfluous, not only because it's not about the programme, but also because it's just never needed. Slagging people off is fine, calling them names, saying they're rubbish, of course, and I'm all for a healthy freedom of expression and the 'right to offend' and all that; but calling a lesbian a 'dyke' and tittering like an adolescent about 'nooks and crannies'? Jesus, that's just painfully low. I think it's the out-and-out lack of class of it that's worse than the wanton offensiveness. Is this the brave new world behind Rupert Murdoch's Times paywall? It doesn't seem to be any bastion of quality at all.
I know that, just as when he shot a baboon for a laugh a while ago, any controversy that gets stirred up will probably be good publicity for Gill; he might even enjoy being in the crosshairs himself for a bit. But that doesn't mean that base homophobic insults like his shouldn't be tackled. I'm glad that Clare Balding hasn't meekly accepted the Sunday Times's attempt to fob off her entirely justified criticism; I'm pleased she's made it clear there's a difference between simple name-calling and something more unpleasant, which is what Gill was indulging himself in.
Now Clare Balding is going to try and pursue a complaint via the PCC, having found no apology from the Sunday Times editor. Of course I wish her luck - and I'm sure she knows she'll need it. If nothing else it will be a good test of Paul Dacre's claims that PCC regulation is a wonderful thing which works beautifully well, and that if only we weren't so ignorant about newspapers everything would work just fine. Maybe in this instance it might. Or maybe not.
Agendas, idleness and collateral damage: A scout leader writes
This is a guest post by blogger Akela. Akela is a white, middle class, Christian, home owning, law abiding male scout leader and former cub leader. Everything the Daily Mail should love. He's also a left wing, Guardian reading, real ale swilling, vegetarian, public transport using (by choice), environmentalist, football loving, public sector worker who really REALLY hates the Daily Mail. He rants about pretty much everything at Akela's Diary.
It all started on Sunday when as I munched on my muesli I surfed through the Sunday scream sheets and I stumbled across this. It would seem, from the headline that scouts were being banned from using pen knives. And my first thought was, “yeah right,” on the basis that firstly it was in the Mail and second, as a scout leader, I get any important rule changes like this cascaded to me pretty quickly. So I read on to discover that apparently
The Scout Association is advising boys* and their parents that they should not bring knives to camp – despite it being legal for anyone to carry a foldable non locking blade in public as long as long as it is shorter than 3 inches.
Eh? What the hell was going on? There was nothing on the website, there was nothing on any recent emails, where was this all coming from?
in a recent edition of their official in-house magazine, Scouting, they are advised that neither they nor their parents should bring penknives to camp.
Now this rang a bell, I’d read something about knife law in scouting some months ago, so had a rummage under the bed and found the relevant article. Now I wont just cut and paste (more on cut and pasting later) wholesale, I shall simply leave you to compare what the Mail selectively quoted from that article, with what the whole article actually says (you’ll need to scroll to page 50). As you can see all it is is clarification of what Britain’s complex knife laws allow and recommendations as to how to put that into practice. And that boils down to stay within the law and only use them when appropriate. Now I ask you, is that really so controversial?
So far just a piss poor bit of research. It got worse though, as on Monday the Scouts Chief Commissioner made a statement on the scouts' website in reaction to the story, in particular he said
A Mail on Sunday journalist approached us on Friday having read the latest guidance we issued in Scouting Magazine/online in December 08 and April 09 on advising Scouts on the situations in which they can use a knife as part of normal Scout Activities. He was looking to make the story into "Scouts Ban knives shocker". The media team took them through the facts and sent them links to our various documents and magazine articles giving him the following info,
- The Rules changed about wearing knives with uniform in 1968
- We have issued regular guidance to the Movement on this matter ever since 1968 e.g. early 1980's , 1996, 2008 and 2009 (the latest being the magazine article in April/May)
- We need to support leaders with information to help them support young peopleDespite making these facts available the Mail on Sunday published the piece, They used a few selective statements and quotes some out of context..
Yes, it would seem that despite being told directly what the situation was the Mail decided to go ahead and publish this story anyway to make the scouts look bloody stupid, wet and generally part of the ‘elf and safety/political correctness gone mad' crap that they churn out ad infinitum.
And they have form for this as well. I was ready to put my fist through the monitor at the distortions they published in 2007 over the “sun rise” camp on Brownsea Island. On that occasion the situation was that a camp was held on a remote island with limited cooking facilities for 300 kids from 150 countries including every religion and culture you can imagine including Jews and Muslims (no pork) Hindus (no beef), Buddhists (vegetarian) and many that you probably can’t all with their own variations. Given this the organisers went for a vegetarian menu for simplicity. The Mail naturally span this in to “scouts ban bangers, political correctness gone mad”. Rather than report on kids from all round the world living peacefully together.
Spinning outright lies about scouts fits perfectly with the whole “why oh why can’t it be the 1950’s again” agenda of the Mail which is itself made up of its various prejudices, prejudice against anything not white middle class and Christian with nice little women who know their limits and Dixon of Dock fucking Green on every street corner cuffing cheeky young scamps round the ear. Which is of course what the 1950’s were like. Apparently. You see in this world we should wear pointy hats, shorts and sharpen sticks with not a girl in sight. My lot will be going canoeing, go karting and to the ballet this term. Times change and the Mail does not like it one bit.
They could have written something positive this weekend. An explorer scout called Lucie Jones looks like she’ll be a big star on X Factor (not my thing personally but still positive). They could have written about the centenary celebrations of our sister organisation the Girl Guides, but they ignored it. Instead the scouts just became canon fodder for their constant crappy agenda.
Yet what are we to make of the rest of the press? Indeed in particular the broad sheets and how they responded to this? Did they see a story and decide to check the facts? Do a spot of research? Pick up the fucking phone and speak to someone? Did they?
Did they bollocks.
No instead every single one of them simply lifted it straight from the Mail (although in fairness the Indie, The Mirror and The Sun pulled theirs after being contacted by Scouts press office). At least the Guardian made some vague attempt to put it in their own words. Not so others who seem to have discovered the copy and paste function. Worst of the lot in this insipid bout of utter bone idleness was, I’m afraid to say, the Times. Yup The Times, I may not agree with all their politics by had at least credited them with some decent journalism. Clearly I was mistaken. Let’s play spot the difference shall we?
Oh I’m sorry, did I get those the wrong way round? Sorry, it’s just I can’t tell the sodding difference. If one of my scouts had been as bone fucking idle as that I would happily kick their arse, where as journalists right across the country get paid for this crock of shit.
Arseholes.
*And another thing, if I have to tell one more person, be it journalist, parent or random punters that girls can be scouts (and beavers, cubs and explorers as well) then I’ll happily strangle them with by bear hands. And yes that does go against the scout promise and law, and I don’t care either!
PANIC! (Don’t panic) Part 2
On the back of today's earlier post about the Telegraph's uneasy grasp of the reality of swine flu, here's today's Times:
Swine flu cases doubled to 100,000 last week
They doubled to 100,000 did they? Definitely?
The number of swine flu cases in Britain nearly doubled last week, as an estimated 100,000 people were infected, officials said today
So this isn't 100,000 people definitely affected, it's 100,000 people reporting flu-like symptoms. That's not the same as cases doubling at all. Out of these '100,000', how many were seriously affected?
Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer for England, said that as of today, 840 people were being treated in hospital after contracting the H1N1 virus.
...which is less than one per cent, if we're to believe the estimates. If anything that demonstrates how thankfully un-lethal this strain of flu has been so far, doesn't it? But you wouldn't know it from reading the press, 'quality' papers like the Times or Telegraph or tabloids alike.
There's more detail in there to back this up:
According to Sir Liam’s latest weekly update, the deaths of 26 people in England have been provisionally linked to the virus. Not all of these deaths have been fully investigated, but of the fatal cases where post-mortem examinations have been carried out, 67 per cent had severe health problems and 16 per cent were said to have been healthy previously.
So that's 26 deaths from supposedly 100,000 cases, which works out at very low mortality rate, even when compared to bog-standard winter flu. Where are the headlines about this? The reporters have the data to hand. Why must they concentrate on 'cases' rising while the truth may well be that many of these 'cases' are just people self-reporting less serious illnesses, or even bunking off work?
Now I know headlines are not the same as stories, but you have to wonder why quality newspapers, when they're using the internet where words are not limited to a small space as it is in a dead-tree newspaper, can't be bothered to get it right. Are they deliberately getting it wrong to ramp up the fear and indulge in another bit of panic-porn?
PS The other angle to the story is about the NHS swine flu website crashing after it was launched - presumably under the sheer number of journalists trying to get on it to see if it would crash. But look, it's working now. Any stories about that...? No...?
The MSM: Sulking bastards
We had a bit of fun on Friday afternoon with the Daily Mail's ridiculously skewed poll about gypsies. So much fun, it turns out, that they've done the grown-up thing and decided to take their ball away and stop playing, because when you go to where the poll was you instead find yourself on their main comment page.
Bless. Sensitive souls at the Mail, then. Now I'd like to think the reason they pulled the poll was because they realised it was ridiculously skewed and unfair, and not because they were taking a pasting in the numbers; but I'm afraid that might be a little naive of me to think that.
Interesting, though, to note this behaviour - and contrast it with the times when their stories get piled on by groups who aren't bleeding-heart soaking-wet left-liberal types, for example when the BNP descend on stories involving immigration and their own fascist political party, and manipulate the comments to make Nick Griffin and chums seem a lot more popular and well-supported than they really are. Does the Mail pull those stories or stop comments on those occasions? No, they don't. They think that's fair enough.
So essentially it's not things being hijacked per se that the Mail objects to; it's things being hijacked by liberals as opposed to fascists. I think that's worth remembering.
You'll see, by the way, that the Mail's columnists and hired heavies are still trying to press ahead with the "Wheelie bins are the agents of doom and we don't like them" drivel from last week.
David Mitchell writes a convincing argument against, and the good news from the poll results is that 57% of Mail readers agree with him:
You'll also notice a couple of other things. Firstly, the Mail is still asking its readers if Michael Martin should resign as Speaker of the House of Commons, several weeks after he did resign as Speaker; and also, that the Mail's poll on "SHOULD IMMIGRANTS BE FORCED (yes, forced) TO RESPECT BRITISH CULTURE?" gets 70% in favour. That is a far more offensive question that the gypsies one, but I guess it's going the way they want it to, so they're not going to be taking that one down any time soon.
But that's the way the mainstream media behave. When they don't get their way, they sulk and pout and stamp their feet. Emotionally, they are a two-year-old child. Take for example The Times's Anna Mikhailova, who manages in an entire article about the outing of NightJack last week to not make a single convincing argument for either the outing of NightJack or her own outing of Zoe Margolis, other than "We in the big boys' media have lawyers and things, bloggers don't, therefore, er, that makes it right what we did. Somehow". But I was intrigued by this:
It was only when I started full-time work that I realised how deeply I was being damaged. I would turn up to a meeting with new contacts and be greeted with a hesitant: “I’ve seen your blog.” Cue an extensive effort by the Sunday Times legal team to take it down — successfully, thank goodness.
Thank goodness they were busily trying to get someone's blog taken down rather than actually defending investigative journalism; what a proud moment for the Sunday Times that was.
Yes, so when the MSM want to get you - out come the big guns of the legal team, no questions asked. When you skew a poll the way they don't like - down it goes. When you skew it in the direction they want - it stays up.
It begins to strike me why the press have had so much fun with the MPs' expenses issue - finally they've managed to take the moral high ground, for the first time ever, by finding a group of people even more reviled than them.
Where did I put that cloak of anonymity?
...or pseudonymity, or, to be completely pedantic in my case, allonymity?
According to those fearless investigative journalists at The Times, who have got to work cracking the big story of the summer, an anonymous copper who's written an award-winning blog shouldn't be allowed to remain anonymous - and may potentially face disciplinary action - because...
Well, there's the problem, isn't it? What exactly is the 'because'? Because what? Why shouldn't this chap be allowed to blog away under a pseudonym for the rest of his natural life? As Justin has pointed out, it's not as if The Times themselves don't use anonymous 'sources', 'friends' and 'insiders', when they need a story.
Can The Times, in the public interest, tell us who helped them out NightJack? Or will they snivel behind the 'cloak of anonymity' they think should be given to their sources, but not to people they want to expose? Strange how it should be one rule for one, and one rule for another. Why is there no byline on the Times leader column? Why not put the author's identity there? Why not out pseudonymous diary columnists, horse racing tipsters and everyone else in the press if it's open season? Oh but I forgot, it only works one way, doesn't it? Especially if you're the Times, who outed the blogger Girl With A One Track Mind because... well, again, it's the 'because' that I'm finding difficulty with.
And all those people who have ever commented under pseudonymous identities on the Times's website...? Should they now have their IP addresses revealed and their identities exposed? Why not? If it's good for someone, why not for someone else? It's not as if there aren't worrying precedents for this kind of thing happening anyway.
I wouldn't mind if the Times had been using its power to expose hypocrisy, or fraudulent behaviour, or reveal that NightJack wasn't a serving copper, for example, but this is none of those things. It's just a cheap shot, and it's pisspoor journalism.
As for me - I'll hide behind that ever-diminishing cloak for the time being, if you don't mind. It's not that I have anything in particular to hide, you understand; it's just that I do have another life outside of this internet world, and never the twain shall meet, as far as I'm concerned. It's everyone's right to have free expression, and mine wouldn't be particularly curtailed by having my real name on here - but interesting blogs like NightJack are under threat because the Times won't show the same courtesy to people who aren't on its payroll as it does to the whistleblowers and sources and 'friends' who help it make its stories. That tears away the figleaf of morality and 'public interest' they're holding up over their mouldy little meat and two veg. They don't really care, so long as it gets them the scoop. Well now you've got it, and well done, you did it for a pointless, meaningless story that no-one gives a flying one about, rather than real investigative journalism. Wow, I bet you're proud of yourselves.
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