As unwarranted and deceitful character assassinations go, this from the Metro is truly appalling.
BBC's Jeremy Clarkson attacks 'black Muslim lesbians' on TV
This is the headline, and already there are problems. He did nothing of the sort, he attacked TV executives.
Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson has ridiculed TV bosses for being obsessed with having "black Muslim lesbians" on shows to balance out the numbers of white heterosexual men.
Hang on, it gets worse.
Clarkson's comments follow the Strictly Come Dancing race row, which saw veteran presenter Bruce Forsyth forced to backtrack in a formal BBC statement after he said the nation should get a "sense of humour" over Anton Du Beke's "slip up" of referring to celebrity dance partner Laila Rouass as a "Paki".
Brucie's later statement, issued through the BBC, emphasised that "racially offensive language is never either funny or acceptable".
Err ... no it didn't follow the entirely unrelated Strictly incident. For the simple reason that Clarkson's piece was written before the Forsyth saga had occurred.
Clarkson made his comments in a column for the November issue of Top Gear magazine.
The publication of which was announced online at a minute past midnight on the 9th.
I've written for magazines much less sophisticated than Top Gear, and anyone who has any clue about deadlines would know that copy is required well in advance of the publication date.
It is quite inconceivable that Clarkson could have written his piece for publication on the 9th, when Forsyth's comments were only publicised the day before.
He was not referring to the Strictly row ...
Of course he wasn't, because that would be impossible, so why the implied smear in the preamble to reporting of the facts?
Metro may be entirely innocent of this, though. They just report what is fed to them by newswires, and as we well know, most of them merely copy and paste what they read.
MSN were amongst dozens of sites who carried the same story, word for condemnatory anti-Clarkson word, except that the Press Association web-site was accredited just above the article date.
Make of that what you will.
5 comments:
Not only that but there's an important inconsistency over who Clarkson is attacking and where:
BBC's Jeremy Clarkson attacks 'black Muslim lesbians' on TV
Could be read as that he was on TV having a go at black Muslim lesbians, and no doubt some people skimming the headlines will have that impression. Especially with the subheading referring to what someone must be calling Strictlygate by now (face/palm for even mentioning it).
But then there's:
Jeremy Clarkson has ridiculed TV bosses for being obsessed with having "black Muslim lesbians" on shows to balance out the numbers of white heterosexual men.
Which makes it clear that his target is not black Muslim lesbians but TV bosses, and that the quote marks suggest that actually there are no black Muslim lesbians and it's just Clarkson hyperbole as usual. Anyone who's read his stuff or paid more than 5 minutes attention to what he says on TV would already know that he loves to exaggerate to make a point, and I can't believe whoever wrote the piece doesn't know that perfectly well. Still, 'TV man makes ludicrous exaggeration that no sane person takes literally after but really before other TV man gets told off for something that's got nothing to do with what first TV man said' doesn't shift papers, especially not freebies that exist only to prevent Tube passengers bashing their own brains out in frustrated boredom when the fucking train is delayed.
There's plenty of stuff to get worked up about without getting hot under the collar over this. The "content" from the Press Association is independent of the headline stuck on it at Metro in all likelihood by some luckless sub.
Where PA reports "Clarkson's comments follow the Strictly Come Dancing race row" aren't they talking about chronology rather than causality.
Jeremy Clarkson has precious few good qualities but one of them is that he doesn't need to be mollycoddled.
Boris should call up Jeremy to run his PR Office but that apart; if the Beeb are so keen on diversity how come there are no black muslim lesbians within their own senior management ? Why are they so hideously white themselves ? Actually I don't care because I don't have a telly and don't pay their theft tax.
AE: Yes, the ambiguous headline struck me too. I should have made more of it seeing as it would appear to be another headline grabber a la 'science by press release'.
Laurence: Good points, well made, but shouldn't PA be more careful about the chronology of the comments themselves in matters that could prove to be inflammatory.
In fact, as a news source, why are they even mentioning the Strictly row at all? It is clearly not related to the subject matter. The report should have been, simply, 'Clarkson said this'.
Laurence, is it mollycoddling Clarkson (agreed BTW - he certainly doesn't need it) or criticising shithouse journalism?
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