Ruffled Petals at the Guardian

by Bryan Hemming

In another principled stand against information it doesn’t like very much the Guardian has made it quite clear that anyone linking to the renegade Off-Guardian site will be banned from commenting. Serve them right, too!
According to Britain’s most inventive news outlet, OffG — an alternative ‘blog’ site set up by a bunch of disgruntled, good-for-nothing, rebel-rousers with nothing better to do— has the temerity to publish “statements of fact regarding our [The Guardian’s] journalists’ credibility”. Many will see the ban as a yet another priceless example of the superior newspaper’s brave struggle against an increasingly non-compliant readership. Some people don’t like hearing the truth even when it pokes them in the eye. They know very well who they are.
Bearing such admirable pluck in mind we can fully expect to see the ban extended to include another media outlet that has seen fit to show similar disrespect towards one of the UK’s most imaginative news organs, following the unearthing of a brazen assault on the credibility of one of its most valiant scribes.
In a blatantly muck-raking article picked up by The Lifeboat News — the new media watchdog born out of the former Media Lens message board — Newsweek, which describes itself as an American ‘magazine’, published an unprovoked attack on innocent little Luke Harding, who wouldn’t harm a fly. Even if it flew into his eye it wouldn’t have to die.
Appearing in the magazine’s European edition last April, the Newsweek article described Harding as “self-styled”. That is a despicable lie. Nothing could be further from the truth. Known for possessing more charm than a flute player with a snake in a basket, nobody could accuse ace scoop Harding of having any style whatsoever.
In How ‘The Guardian’ Milked Edward Snowden’s Story, horrid Julian Assange blasts poor, old Luke —who adores fluffy kittens like mad, incidentally— in a way that makes most Off-Guardian criticisms look like unrequited missives from the lovelorn.
It seems the heartless editors of Newsweek don’t give a fig about hurting the sensibilities of the little petals down at the Guardian. Well, they going to learn a lesson they won’t forget in a hurry if the newspaper’s firm response against Off-Guardian is anything to go by. You wouldn’t get honourable journalists like Luke Harding and Marina Hyde slagging off other journalists, would you now? It just isn’t cricket.
I expect they’ll all be shaking in their boots down at Newsweek HQ this week. And well they might.
Editor Katharine Viner can rest assured she will receive the full weight of my support in imposing a ban on this Newsweek thingummy, whatever it calls itself, to take effect immediately. You show ‘em who’s boss, Kath!

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