Viewing 30 posts - 1 through 30 (of 30 total)
  • Spectator humiliated by Rashford fake news prank
  • inkster
    Free Member

    This is delicious…

    dannybgoode
    Full Member

    That’s marvellous…

    kimbers
    Full Member

    The spectator was looking foolish long before this, (much like the telegraph) their relationship with Johnson and closeness to the current tory party leaves them vulnerable to the exact same charges of hypocrisy and stupidity.
    Its obvious that much of their output is culture war click bait nonsense (as the Rashford thing shows)
    Their amplifying of the likes of Gupta & her fake tcell herd immunity, Toby Young & his casedemic were down right dangerous.
    The Cummings farce exposed them as fake news, thanks to his wife’s article.

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    ctk
    Free Member

    I saw on Twitter that the England Football team refused to meet BJ post Euros.

    Didn’t see it in the MSM though!

    inkster
    Free Member

    In 2016, Douglas Murray (now the editor) greeted Trump’s election win with an article titled: “Why a Trump presidency won’t be as bad as you think’.

    Don’t go looking for it in the Spectator archive though, on the 7th January this year Murray went back and redacted the article.

    Burning down the library like that blind monk in Umberto Eco’s Name of the Rose (and pretty good at putting poison on the page as well.)

    File under fiction.

    p7eaven
    Free Member

    Wasn’t it the The Spectator’ that coined/popularised the phrase ‘Cyclists are a menace’?

    maccruiskeen
    Full Member

    It’s really easy to lie to someone if you tell them something they want to hear. Conveniently the Spectator had clearly outlined exactly what it was they wanted to hear. Difficult to miss an open goal like that.

    augustuswindsock
    Full Member

    The tragedy is this will make no difference to the mainstream right wing media who will carry on manipulating so much of the population with their bile and too many people suck it up without questioning it or thinking about it.

    thegeneralist
    Free Member

    This is delicious…

    Can you direct me to the delicious bit please. Judging by the first few minutes, the video could really do with a decent edit.

    Jakester
    Free Member

    This is the article that the video refers to.

    Basically the crux is this:

    Wokeyleaks was asking for people to send in “anonymous” examples of “woke-culture war crimes” from workplaces, and other settings. Lol, what losers, I thought to myself (Can one think a lol? Remember, it was the second (or third?) lockdown and I was very bored). So I decided to amuse myself by sending them some fake stories. Surely they wouldn’t take this seriously, I mused, as I hammered out frankly ludicrous claims about the great and the good; and thought little more of it.

    Prankster sends in contrived absurdity about Rashford, Spectator buys it hook line and sinker.

    thepodge
    Free Member

    This isn’t even a b of a blip on their radar.

    Largely unknown leftwing news site reports on a largely unknown “prankster” who spoke to a newspaper that didn’t write an article.

    That’s one way of sticking it to the man I suppose.

    jimw
    Free Member

    Largely unknown leftwing news site reports on a largely unknown “prankster” who spoke to a newspaper that didn’t write an article.

    Whilst I can agree that it is a bit of a storm in a tea cup, it is quite revealing.
    The prankster had got the journalists excited, they did write a draft of the article, it had gone to their lawyers who apparently informed Rashford’s lawyers as often happens before publication and presumably they then found out that they had been had so they didn’t publish the article they had written. So whilst it didn’t hit the media it doesn’t put the journalists in a good light.

    white101
    Full Member

    These journalists don’t like a good light, they can only operate in the dark

    inkster
    Free Member

    I thought the tastiest part was when the Spectator admitted that they “don’t do investigative joirnalism”

    The reason that I posted it on here is that many on here, regardless of political persuasion have read the Spectator and the Telegraph in the past and this incident illustrates just how low those publications have sunk and how estranged from reality they have become.

    Jujuuk68
    Free Member

    But every one is missing the point.

    As the Spectator lurches drunkenly to the hard right, and loses much of its hard won prior crediblity as a serious political news magazine in the eyes of those of us who recall it’s rather better informed past, it’s circulation is now roughly double what it was only a few years ago. They’ve literally never sold more.

    As it gets more laughable, ill informed and unbalanced and unreadable as a serious magazine, so they flog more copies, thus eenriching themselves and cementing in support for this rather talentless and crooked tory govt. I suspect its this trend that informed investors of the anticipated likely future success of GB News, that there seemed a genuine, paying market for this hard right wing drivel and tosh.

    bearnecessities
    Full Member

    The reason that I posted it on here is that many on here, regardless of political persuasion have read the Spectator and the Telegraph in the past

    I’m not trying to be a dick, but I best most of us/the no political persuasion bunch don’t read any newspapers/news mags at all.

    We just get brainwashed by the BBC and here instead 🙃

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    it’s circulation is now roughly double what it was only a few years ago. They’ve literally never sold more.

    Not really true, well not sold at the cover price anyway. It printed an average of 88,000 copies last year, up from 62,000 the year before. But their profit is pretty much flat. Looks more like they’re giving it away to make it appealing to advertisers.

    Spectator Accounts

    kerley
    Free Member

    The reason that I posted it on here is that many on here, regardless of political persuasion have read the Spectator and the Telegraph in the past

    Not what I would have guessed. Can’t see many people, other then the obvious tory posters going anywhere near the Telegraph or Spectator. I would expect the Morning Star to get more hits 🙂

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    Not everyone lives in an echo chamber.

    I used to get the Week (on it semi permenant £1 for however many issues deal) which IIRC is owned by the Mail group? Ditto the Economist.

    Sometimes it’s better to be able to understand peoples points so you can argue with them from their perspective.

    big_n_daft
    Free Member

    Not what I would have guessed. Can’t see many people, other then the obvious tory posters going anywhere near the Telegraph or Spectator. I would expect the Morning Star to get more hits 🙂

    You’ll be shocked when you realise how many Unison members read the Daily Mail

    One thing it does show is that journalists can be victims of confirmation bias. Another is that The Spectator has systems in place to catch the ridiculous as do the rest of the MSM

    It will be a part of every journalism course in the future

    MSP
    Full Member

    One thing it does show is that journalists can be victims of confirmation bias.

    One thing it does show is that the spectator writers are not journalists.

    But neither are the people producing that terrible podcast discussing other people’s discussions by spending 5 minutes reading a 2 minute sentence, I think that’s the second time an “episode” of that podcast has been posted in the past few days, if that is in your feed you need to look at your media consumption.

    maccruiskeen
    Full Member

    You’ll be shocked when you realise how many Unison members read the Daily Mail

    I’m not sure what the current breakdown would be, but certainly in recent years almost half of the Mail’s readership have been labour voters.

    There’s only so much you can read into that though. People can policallally left but culturally conservative or fiscally conservative but culturally liberal for instance so the choice of either a paper or a party doesn’t really reflect where they sit on a political spectrum. The overwhelming majority newspapers have a right-leaning editorial so left-leaning voters actually have pretty slim pickings – in between one lefty broadsheet and one mildly lefty red-top theres not really anything in the middle-brow middle ground. So the choice is read the Mail or read nothing.

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    But neither are the people producing that terrible podcast discussing other people’s discussions by spending 5 minutes reading a 2 minute sentence, I think that’s the second time an “episode” of that podcast has been posted in the past few days, if that is in your feed you need to look at your media consumption.

    They’re paid by the second. YouTube, Spotify, etc want to push an advert in every X minutes, so podcasts need to keep you there for as long as possible to get any financial return on it.

    They’re the audio equivalent of “you wouldn’t believe what colour the new Santa Cruz 5010 is (49 clicks, number 37 is heartbreaking)”.

    Once again, if you can’t see the price, then you’re the product.

    prettygreenparrot
    Full Member

    …delicious

    Nah, it’s a post up of a tediously long YouTube ramble. If you’d provided a summary* we wouldn’t need to listen to ‘blah blah blah blah’.

    Having said that, the Independent essentially repeated the same stuff in this https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/marcus-rashford-the-spectator-poverty-b1887599.html without any real editorial component.

    Is the story: ‘right wing magazine on the ropes tries to trash successful outspoken footballer’?

    *edit. or linked to wherever the punchline is

    kimbers
    Full Member

    The spectator of late is Andrew Neil’s baby, fraser Nelson & James Forsyth his protégés & one of them is married to Allegra Stratton Johnsons spokesperson.
    They’ve led the attacks for the government on Sturgeon that tried & failed to get the Salmond thing to bring her down.
    But from praising Orban or Trump to attacking footballers who take the knee, to amplifying anti-vax/covid deniers, climate deniers, they’ve exposed themselves for what they are.
    Tufton Street, IEA that he’s part of, just spread lies & misinformation
    https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/aug/09/lbcs-james-obrien-wins-ofcom-battle-with-institute-of-economic-affairs

    And of course Neil’s latest project, has been a joke, canceling their own staff for taking the knee, they’ve had to go lowest denominator & get Farage on. Meanwhile the anti-vax / covid deniers are pandered too
    Just look at the comments when he does his usual trick of distancing himself when things go too far & his genius mob he helped whip up attack the BBC by storming the wrong building.

    kerley
    Free Member

    Not everyone lives in an echo chamber.

    I don’t either but was just pointing out that I would guess that not many would be reading the Telegraph or Spectator.

    Sometimes it’s better to be able to understand peoples points so you can argue with them from their perspective.

    Maybe for you. I don’t need to read the Spectator to know about their perspective and I can’t see a point where I would ever be arguing with someone from the Spectator.
    I do however live and work in places surrounded by Tories so pretty much every face to face discussion is going to be with right wing people, so echo chamber, no not really.

    big_n_daft
    Free Member

    One thing it does show is that the spectator writers are not journalists

    Neither are the producers of the op-ed pap that the guardian passes as a lot of it’s content these days

    Both publications try to engage in takedown journalism, both stuff it up as their desperate confirmation bias kicks in

    It’s a shame really as I would prefer if they engaged on the issues rather than culture wars (the similarity with the made up Oasis/ Blur battle is entirely a coincidence…). For example the core Marcus Rashford point on feeding kids is that it isn’t the kids fault if they aren’t getting fed properly. I don’t see how the core point (its not the kids fault) splits right and left. The basic points, the kid isn’t getting fed properly and it’s not their fault don’t change. The solutions can be argued about but unless they reduce the number of kids who aren’t getting fed properly then they aren’t part of the solution and should be dismissed from the discussion.

    Maybe for you. I don’t need to read the Spectator to know about their perspective and I can’t see a point where I would ever be arguing with someone from the Spectator.

    My attempt at reading it failed, it just felt like a load of SE centric pap surrounding a few interesting articles. I object to funding SE centric pap so don’t buy it. I do however like a lot of the Spectator TV stuff, I skip past the pap (outraged US author on wearing a mask as she jets around in a global pandemic, Rod Liddle etc) and listen to the more interesting discussions. Important issues are discussed in depth (lockdown pro and con, the building regs/cladding scandal, future of work, why no-one gets sacked after yet another public sector scandal) discussions are often robust they get politely heated with often a half decent counter and even if I don’t agree with their point I better understand why they are making it. The magazine offers they trail are seemingly directed at people who like a drink and shop on Amazon

    inkster
    Free Member

    “if that is in your feed you need to look at your media consumption.”

    With that phrase you are implying that I succumb to a very narrow media feed, when I’ve just posted that as a liberal Guardian reader I also sometimes read the Spectator and the telegraph (and Fox and the DM).

    I know you like to troll me MSP but as usual, you’re not even wrong. Keep up with the good work though because there’s nothing better than a curt and dismissive response to one of my posts to get me typing again.

    Sorry for using the phrase ‘most of us’ when I meant ‘some of us’ but I was a bit hasty and posted it without consulting my lawyers.

    dannyh
    Free Member

    I guess I’m lucky in that I never really though The Spectator was actually a news source as such.

    To me it was always the mag of last resort on the dentist’s waiting room table. Well below National Geographic, below AutoTrader.

    inkster
    Free Member

    Danny, the sad thing is that occasionally you can get a really interesting article published by an organ with a different political perspective to your own.

    For example, last year, the best article about the Coulston face plant that I saw was actually done by Mathew Parris on the Spectator podcast, where he posited that the kind of violence enacted by the modern ‘woke’ left was cathartic and performative (The event looked more like a Monty Python film or an episode of the Simpsons), in contrast to the kind of violence we saw perpetrated by Boss’s Pretorian guard of far right football hooligans.

    You had to fast forward past Douglas Murray’s (pound shop Ben Shapiro) ‘thoughts’ on the matter but Parris’s piece was worth the effort.

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