The Telegraph: A Tale of Trolling

Katharine Birbalsingh is not a name many of you will be familiar with, but her blogs for the Daily Telegraph show a desire for infamy Peter Andre would blush at…

I confess, I only recently found out what, in internet terms, a “troll” is. I am not what you would call tech-savvy, but after I found this word in, of all places, an English language textbook the internet made a little more sense to me. It is surprising, however, to find a troll blogging for a broadsheet newspaper.

I am of course assuming Birbalsingh’s latest blog is an excellent piece of trolling. It is such an offensive piece of vile tripe that it even stands out in the Telegraph. According to Birbalsingh, who made her name as “the teacher who exposed the failings of the comprehensive school system at the Conservative Party conference last year” (their words and definitely not mine), Jens Breivik, the father of Anders Breivik who killed dozens of innocent Norwegians last week, “has a lot to answer for”. The tenuous crux of her blog is that, by insisting on a custody battle when Anders was one and subsequently losing access to his son, he caused Anders to go on to commit the atrocities we have all witnessed. Indeed she goes on, arguing that:

Of course, normally neglected children go on to have difficult adult relationships themselves and maybe they see a therapist. Sometimes they have trouble settling at school. Most do not go on killing sprees which result in 76 dead. Clearly, something else wasn’t quite right with Anders Breivik. But his father is deeply confused. “How could he just stand there and kill so many innocent people and just seem to think that what he did was OK?” Well maybe he didn’t have a father when he was growing up to teach him the difference between right and wrong. What I want to know is why his father isn’t feeling any sense of remorse for having failed his son.

Sorry, what?! Bringing up events Anders Breivik couldn’t possibly remember, the custody battle and then suggesting only fathers can teach children right from wrong is madness, and this woman is a teacher!! To tar all single-parent families with the “difficult adult relationships” is so Telegraph it’s painful, but this is beyond the pale.

You know what Katharine, I didn’t have a male role model and I have a very healthy relationship, in fact most of my friends from one-parent families do. My mother taught me right from wrong far more than anyone else, certainly my father. When you say “Clearly, something else wasn’t quite right with Anders Breivik” you’re competing for the understatement of the century. A man with clear mental illness, Breivik was not turned homicidal by his father’s absence, of which we know little.

What we do know is that Telegraph writers should look closer to home, indeed Breivik quoted extensively from at least four Telegraph articles about immigration. The abhorrent anti-immigrant-baiting articles and the far-right had far more of a spell for Breivik, but as I have said Breivik is insane and his true motives are a box we can put him in afterwards, they actually explain very little. His father’s remorse is for the innocent who were killed which is only right, not for his mass-murdering son.

Of course, like most modern online papers, the Telegraph has a comments list after the blog and it reveals the depth of feeling on this issue, most of it baffling, inaccurate bile, as shown by “thingsarebad”:

It would be more accurate to say that Breivik's mother has a lot to answer for since she's the one who denied his father access to him. Boys growing up in single mother homes are far more likely to get in trouble with the law and have other problems. Boys require a father figure growing up, and the anti-male laws in place that deny fathers access to their children while turning them into nothing more than wallets for mommy to spend on whatever she likes are the real culprit. I'd actually put more blame on women like Katharine Birbalsingh, feminists who hate men and boys so much they are happy to endorse laws that take away fathers from their kids. And then, no surprise, they go ahead and blame the men, when it was feminists anti-male laws that caused Breivik to grow up in a dysfunctional home in the first place. Thanks feminists, you really are amazing!

In fact it would be more accurate to say you have all lost your fucking minds!! The right-wing press perpetually stigmatises the children of one-parent families who have no choice in the matter. Birbalsingh does not hate men but she clearly knows very little about adults from one-parent families, in fact it appears she clearly thinks they are amoral lunatics, or are at least more likely to be. The assumption that children need two parents to succeed is flat out wrong, look who’s the most powerful man in the world (well at least for five more days), Barack Obama. Whilst two parents may be preferable this stigmatism really needs to stop and it certainly has no place in this debate.

Ultimately, it is terrible articles like Birbalsingh’s in the mainstream press that cause hate, not the actions of a single father attempting to see his son grow up. Anders Breivik is a depraved lunatic pure and simple; to band him in with every other neglected child is breathtakingly stupid and shows an ignorance that is unforgivable but disturbingly symptomatic of much of today’s press.

The Sun: It gets more sickening by the day...

The Sun newspaper’s headline today highlights just what a cancerous organisation we are examining, Brown’s not wrong The Sun is.

Today News International begins its offensive defence with the headline “Brown Wrong” and a sneering defence of the 2006 revelations about Gordon Brown’s son, claiming that Brown has got this all wrong and that Rebekah Brooks et al obtained this specific information legitimately. Disregarding the other allegations against News International they reckon we’re all being too mean about Brooks, The Times and their right to freedom of speech.

You would have thought this organisation and its newspapers would have shown more humility, given the stories that have come out in the last week. One allegedly false allegation does not warrant this response, the basic question with this story does not concern where the information came from but that they printed this story at all, particularly with the Browns’ plea for the paper not to do so. It was an inhuman action by a morally bankrupt corporation representing the interests of a shell of a man. In short it was one of the worst things you could do to a family, to a four-month old boy who had wronged anyone and did not deserve this exposure. It was not, however, the worst. For this, see the Dowler case…

This is the last desperate stand of a cancerous organisation against a deeply unpopular man. A man whose unpopularity was created by the consistent lies and mistruths reported by a media conglomerate with a personal vendetta against an elected, career civil servant. A decent man with the integrity and decency that no one from News International has shown over the last twenty years and certainly not in the last two weeks.

News International’s actions today have underlined the cancerous, sick, distorted nature of this crumbling empire and I am left with nothing to say but “Show some fucking humility and respect and take one on the chin, Lord knows your victims have earned that you twisted scum. It is not the source but the nature of the story that is so disgusting, arrogant and harrowing…”

Chilling, Disgusting, Murdoch...

The latest revelations show a breath taking, chilling arrogance on the part of the Murdoch empire and the British media in general, as a society we can no longer allow this to continue.

There is a difference between press freedom and media ethics. There is also a difference between the public interest and what News International prints on a daily basis. Whatever you think of Gordon Brown, and I appreciate he is not a liked man, the revelations about his children’s health have no place in newspapers. A democracy does not mean privacy no longer applies. In fact it means the opposite. That’s why we have a secret ballot; it’s why we have privacy laws, the Data Protection Act et al.

A free press is a cornerstone of a safe and free democracy but with the advent of the Murdoch era and the pornographer Richard Desmond’s acquisition of the Express group came the erosion of journalistic practices and their intent. Sensationalisation and muck became the focus and the public became engrossed in a series of repugnant exclusives, sorry EXCLUSIVES, that hid behind the pretension of freedom. The papers courted the worst of human nature and News International and McMullan’s defence that people still bought their papers just further exposes their contempt for the law and the majority of the public who find these rags reprehensible. People voted for Mussolini, Hitler, Bush, and it didn’t make it right. The perverse interest in the private lives of others has become accepted because of papers like this, and it shouldn’t be. Particularly when children who are unable to defend themselves are involved, what does this say about British society? Certainly nothing good.

Indeed democracy is fundamentally damaged and undermined by the fear of politicians who are only one step away from having their private lives thrown across the tabloids. The Data Protection Act states that only “relevant information” can be held about an individual; new press regulations should state the same thing. Fraser Brown’s cystic fibrosis has nothing to do with Gordon Brown’s competency; it has nothing to do with my impression of him as a man, a leader, a father. In short, we do not need to know, it is a private, family matter that he is free to conceal or reveal, to deal with privately as a family.

In a brilliant moment on a recent Newsnight Steve Coogan called former News of the World editor and all round sickening, inhuman apologist Paul McMullan a “muckraker”. Yet such a term fails to do justice to this behaviour. The original muckrakers were American journalists unveiling the terrible conditions of the tenements of the large American cities. Journalists such as Stephen Crane whose bleak, naturalist novella Maggie: A Girl of the Streets reveals the true purpose of journalistic endeavour, to protect citizens and give a voice to those without power. What you read in the tabloids is nothing but perverse entertainment and hand-washing. A group of criminals cannot be the moral arbiters this country, or any country, needs or wants.

The truth is the revelations about Brown reveal a chilling and disgusting arrogance on the part of the Murdochs, Brooks and News International. Brown was elected by his peers to lead this country. Love him or loathe him, a certain level of respect for Brown or any other Prime Minister is due. There has never been any suggestion Brown was involved in corruption or wrongdoing of any kind, he was hounded for the political gain of a man who was never elected, essentially for profit. Medical records are not obtained legitimately, that’s a simple fact. To attack the Prime Minister in such a way shows a contempt for the electorate, the public and an arrogance that is inexcusable.

As for celebrities, McMullan claims that by parading themselves on a red carpet and by earning large amounts of cash they are fair game. Well that’s disgusting. For the most part celebrities attempt to entertain people, not hand over their lives to reckless and abhorrent journalists and paps. It will be swept under the carpet by the increasingly disgusting things we have read over recent weeks, but the fact remains, everything we have read is criminal. Everyone is entitled to a level of privacy the current tycoons in charge of our media arrogantly dissuade. Of course the facts concerning Milly Dowler, the families of 7/7 victims and dead soldiers are the most shocking and disgraceful but do not let us lose sight of the fact that titillating gossip is symptomatic of the disgusting abuses committed by News International. The whole system can no longer be trusted with self-regulation as it shouldn’t have been from the beginning but there’ll be more on that later in the week…

The Sun: An open letter

Below is a copy of a letter I sent to the Sun newspaper today in response to the Guardian's revelations regarding the interception of Milly Dowler's voicemails, I am currently working on a longer response as the phone-hacking allegations have infuriated me from day one but the latest news is so revolting I have not been able to formulate a coherent blog yet! I suggest writing your own angry letter or simply using mine (remember to change the name!) and please send all reactions to talkback@the-sun.co.uk This is a crucial moment in the history of the media in Britain and I suggest we all react with appropriate ire!

"Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing regarding the details that have emerged in recent days relating to the hacking of Milly Dowler’s voicemail and the conduct of your employee Glenn Mulcaire.

Obviously I do not read your newspapers as I have an IQ over 4 and can understand more than four thousand words, however I acknowledge that a large number of people or ‘idiots’ do read the utter tripe you publish on a daily basis. Instead of pointing fingers and using the old defence that everyone was doing it, for which you have produced zero evidence, you may wish to at least appear to be humbled by your company’s actions and unilaterally concede and confirm your wrongdoings instead of “welcoming” inquiries. Perhaps a small sign of remorse rather than a bleeding heart memo from someone (Rebekah Brooks) who was either involved or at least criminally negligent may offer some contrition. I have never been an editor of a national newspaper but I would assume payments of tens of thousands of pounds would have to be signed for by some top-level employees and a basic level of questioning about how your reporters were gaining such personal information.

I also notice that the News of the World’s disgusting actions are sixth on your list of headlines today, behind such newsworthy items as Cheryl Cole’s ultimatums for Ashley Cole, what basis or sources you’ve used for this ‘story’ I dread to think, and long-range pictures of Arsene Wenger on a family holiday. Ground-breaking reporting! In fact the most believable story I found was about a Mexican UFO.

Perhaps also you can now offer a t-shirt on your site as well, something along the lines of “I’m a private investigator for News International and I got this t-shirt by pissing on the families of murder victims…” Perhaps this will more accurately reflect the level of contempt you have for good media practices and the privacy of individuals.

Yours sincerely,

Chris Mistry"