On the Columnist’s Art

March 19, 2009

Blade enjoys the musings of former Conservative politician turned writer and journalist Matthew Parris. He has a nice, wry style, an easy wit and an admirably humane stance on life. It is a shame, therefore, to note that this column, from The Times of December 2007, sparked a record number of complaints to the ever-snarling Press Complaints Commission.

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Parris lambasted cyclists in his column, suggesting that it might be an idea to string piano wire across country lanes to decapitate them. A rogue cyclist must have prompted his ire, for he opined that the breed, as a whole, was nasty and brutish, if not short, as well as prone to jettisoning litter at every turn and, yet worse, wearing lycra.  “Does cycling turn you into an insolent jerk?” asked Parris, in conclusion, “Or are insolent jerks drawn disproportionately to cycling?”

Remarkably, these views prompted 584 complaints to the PCC, which bared its vicious teeth and did nothing at all, with the result that Parris eventually apologised. As he put it: “It was meant humorously but so many cyclists have taken it seriously that I plainly misjudged. I am sorry.”

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This year, we have seen another eminent Times columnist follow in Parris’s footsteps with a column which is sure to have prompted a deluge of complaints to the PCC. Step forward, Giles Coren, whose Valentine’s Day rant about dogs oozed almost as much bile as an alcoholic’s liver. Perhaps Coren happened on a particularly errant dog, one which really couldn’t classified as even an acquaintance, let alone a friend, of man, woman or child, or maybe he was traumatised as a toddler by an evil pooch. Either way, he took the intemperate column to a level undreamt of by Parris.

Coren is a good writer and a literary chap. Blade is sure that he must be cognisant of so fine a scribe as the Portuguese Nobel winner Jose Saramago. What, though, would he make of Saramago’s devotion to dogs? Perhaps this might be a topic he could visit in a column.

Meanwhile, the PPC is open for business. A source says that it has recently received a letter from an aggrieved cyclist who also has a pet dog. The letter reads as follows:

As a cyclist who owns a dog, I feel persecuted by The Times. It is my belief that certain of its columnists should be decapitated by piano wire held between the snouts of my dog and next door’s. This, rather than humour, is the only language they will ever understand. 

Images courtesy of robinryan and GuyB.

 

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From the inside of the maze, ethically outwards

February 9, 2012

Curious times in the media; strange days at The Times.

Would ‘Dacre Cards‘ – the system of licensing journalists proposed by Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre – have prevented the embarrassment now palpable at the Times over the NightJack story?

Times editor James Harding’s evidence to the Leveson Inquiry seemed heartfelt and contrite, albeit that the paper’s former long-serving and much-respected lawyer, Alastair Brett, seems to have been, er, rather dropped in it. Clearly, mistakes were made with regard to NightJack by young reporter Patrick Foster who, once he had hacked into NightJack’s account and thus discovered his identity, then embarked on a quest to expose it via legitimate methods. This, as Inquiry counsel Robert Jay QC put it, was “rather like working from the inside of the maze out”.

But had Foster been licensed via a Dacre Card, would this unsavoury episode in the Times’s history have been avoided?

We suspect not. A raft of laws were in existence at precisely the time when many News of the World journalists seemed to believe that they were entitled to hack any phone they liked. Those laws forbade them from doing so, and yet made no difference. Aside from the obvious objection to them – that they will squeeze out freelancers and citizen journalists – Dacre Cards would simply amount to something to circumvent.

What is really required is an ethical shake-up, from top to bottom. Society generally – not just journalists – needs a sense that some things are just plain wrong.

Supreme Court on Twitter

February 6, 2012

Something remarkable happened today. Yes, the Supreme Court launched its Twitter feed. It even has a Twitter policy, one of caveats, disclaimers and little by way of illumination but regardless: who would have thought that the successor body to the House of Lords would stoop to engage with the world of tweets, hashtags and retweets?

We look forward to the day when court business will be conducted via Twitter. Meantime, check out this link for an excellent blog on the Supreme Court.

Not so right said Fred

February 2, 2012
fred hat

So Farewell, then, Sir Fred Goodwin.

Now you are just Fred.

Not Right Said Fred, but plain Fred.

The Forfeiture Committee did for you.

No one had heard of it before,

But Dave said it had to act, and it did.

Trouble is that no one knows what to think.

Is it ‘Alas, poor Fred‘,

Or ‘Hurray! Sir Fred is dead!’?

We don’t know.

Do you?

By A. Mob, aged 1,378 and a half.