Sigh

As Hacked Off put it on Twitter: “Some newspapers have resorted to distortions, inaccuracies and explicit transphobic abuse.”

And?

IPSO is not fit for purpose and sectors of the UK press are out of control. What they do is not journalism, and it does not deserve protection.

We don’t protect it because it’s journalism. We protect it because it’s free speech.

12 thoughts on “Sigh”

  3. Gamecock

    The only people who still believe in the nobility of journalists is . . . journalists.

    ‘I used to be against press regulation, because many journalists are fine people who do important work. Especially ME!’

    FIFY

    ‘But some of the biggest publishers in the country have turned their platforms’

    Publishers don’t operate platforms. You’d think a top notch journalist would know that.

    ‘into bully pulpits, repeatedly, mendaciously publishing malicious content designed to hurt the most vulnerable people in our society: not just trans people but minorities of all kinds’

    Content. She judges content. And if the content doesn’t suit her, ‘it does not deserve protection.’ So it’s okay to kill journalists whom she disagrees with.

    Seems fair.

  4. bloke in spain

    One thing we definitely don’t get enough of in newspapers is sufficient transphobic abuse. Most of them seem to have bought into the trans-fantasy world.

  5. bloke in spain

    There is one thing I’d agree with her on:
    “the UK press are out of control. What they do is not journalism,”
    There was a time when journalists could be relied upon to bring one the facts about the world to enable one to form an opinion. These days, their output is so larded up & distorted
    by their own opinions as to be virtually useless. So while I would support their right to free speech I can see nothing wrong with them suffering the consequences. Hunting them with dogs & horsewhips springs immediately to mind.

  8. john 77

    I, personally, object to hate campaigns against transvestites, transgender people and celibate gays (or monogamous gays) but I do not deny that there are predators *disguised as transgender people*.
    I was very surprised when a friend (one of a minority of decent guys in DWP, who acted as part-time carer as well as partner to his disabled girlfriend) told me that he was a transvestite to explain why he was leaving town because some people mistook “transvestite” to mean sexual predator. I have never seen him since, they were effectively driven out of town by ignorant bigots. OTOH I have noticed the number of prosecutions of football coaches of youth teams.
    So I feel that we should protect the innocent but not the guilty.
    Today’s “Daily Mirror” headline attacks the Tories for cancelling free TV for the over 75s: “some newspapers resort to distortions” – that isn’t even a distortion: it’s a flat-out lie. The government agreed that the BBC should take over the licence reduction for over-75s in exchange for an increased government subsidy. Not to mention “The Conversation” and “Tory Party in denial about Islamophobia” citing as an example of Islamophobia a part-Turkish Tory buffoon quoting the Qu’ran.

  9. Pcar

    News or Boris Derangement Syndrome hysteria?

    I do love the Guardian. As the years go by almost no publication continues to give me such constant amusement. This week has been no exception.

    A couple of days after first reading it I still remain almost impossibly amused by the paper’s lead, front-page story from earlier this week. The banner headline read ‘Boris Johnson claimed Islam put Muslim world “centuries behind”.’ As the sub-header for Frances Perraudin’s piece put it:

    ‘Anger as 2007 essay lamenting ‘no spread of democracy’ in Islamic world comes to light.’

    Comes to light, eh? Must be some under-the-counter pamphlet, previously hidden-from-public-view stuff. That impression is reinforced as we start reading Perraudin’s piece, a piece that sets off with a paragraph of scintillating promise:

    ‘Boris Johnson has been strongly criticised for arguing Islam has caused the Muslim world to be “literally centuries behind” the west, in an essay unearthed by the Guardian.’

    ‘Unearthed’. Wow, this must be exceptionally secret – as well as strong – stuff. So we have to keep reading to discover that the offence complained of did not occur during a rally in a Bavarian beer-hall, but in ‘An appendix added to a later edition of The Dream of Rome, his [Johnson’s] 2006 book about the Roman empire.’ So in fact when the Guardian’s intrepid correspondent, Frances Perraudin, talks about ‘unearthing’ something, what she really means is that she has read some of a book published a little over a decade ago. You can say many things about reading books, including reading books by prominent politicians, but the turning of research into ‘unearthing’ is the sort of self-glorification and task-inflation that could only occur in a trade that is dying.

    And what is the ‘Anger’ which helps to make this Guardian front-page story about a published book? Have the Ayatollahs in Iran commented on ‘The Dream of Rome’? Has Al-Azhar issued any ruling on the permissibility of the 2007 appendix? It appears not….

  11. BniC

    Anything other than constant praise is deemed to be phobic these days, acceptance and tolerance are too lukewarm and are signs of hate crimes.

  12. Boganboy

    I naturally object most strongly to hate campaigns against white Anglo-Saxon Protestant males.

    Guess what I am. If you ignore the Scotch, Irish and French bits, of course.

  14. Ted S, Catskill Mtns, NY, USA

    Also, there’s a report going round, which I can’t find now, that puberty blockers reduced a child’s IQ by something like 0%.

    That’s a mighty big reduction.

    You’d make a good sub-editor. :-p

  15. Stonyground

    So isn’t it true then, that Islamic countries are centuries behind western countries according to pretty much every metric that you care to use? Or is the fact that it is true irrelevant to a Guardian writer?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *