Death of a Thousand Cuts

This week the country has mainly been getting it's knickers in a twist over what football player Imogen Thomas had been shagging. It was Ryan Giggs. Now let's be clear Ryan has been a prat for cheating on his wife. But that is basically him and his wife's business and none of mine or anybody elses really. He has been a colossal prat in the fact that he took out a super injunction. Which has blown a story that would have lasted a week into the stratosphere.

I'm sure with hindsight he realises this. My only hope is he does not sell out further and give his side of the story to the papers. My guess is he won't. he's never really sought the limelight. He didn't sell his wedding to the highest bidder for magazine money and his media profile has always been pretty low. If he does do this and just ignores the papers then it's a shoo in that this story will disappear pretty quickly as the press are like small children, easily distracted.

The truly delicious part of this whole story has been the mounting frustration of the tabloid media who had been prevented from naming Giggs as we all merrily discussed it on the Internet. This has what all their outrage has been about. This story has proved, once again, how totally irrelevant they are. With Twitter, Facebook and Google we don't need papers any longer. The fun could have lasted even longer were it not for rent a quote gobshite MP John Hemming cowardly revealing Giggs name in the house of commons where he was exempt from prosecution. Quite the man of principle.

I'd be interested to know what the age demographic on buying newspapers is. I suspect the average age of people who buy newspapers is going up year on year. I honestly cannot see how they are going to survive another twenty years. They are already trying to outdo each other now competing to be most vile and hysterically scaremongering. Is that going to continue ? One would hope there would come a point where the British public would say enough. Here's hoping it's not a slow death and they go quickly.

Dinosaurs

The press have been getting themselves into overdrive this week again and have managed to royally fuck it up again. Even when they get outraged for the right reasons they still end up making things worse.

I am referring to the situation with Richard Keys and Andy Gray. Last weekend they were caught on mic making some very sexist remarks about women and in particular their role in football. Quite frankly they made the pair of them look like complete fucking idiots, buffoons even.

They then compounded things by taking too long to apologise. The press smelt blood and when The Sun joined in the attack they must have known they were done for as no Murdoch paper is going to break ranks and attack another part of that empire without getting the green light first.

This is a classic example of the press running away with themselves in their own merry way. Not bothering to think about the consequences just wanting to get their man.

The outrage they were so busy trying to whip up was supposedly to do with offence they caused women. What bollocks. As if the Sun or the Daily Mail ever gave a shit about that particular cause. The Sun will still continue to sexualise young women on a daily basis as will the Mail with its mock outrage about Christina Aguilera’s X-Factor appearance while publishing all the titillating photos.

And what of Keys and Gray ? Many will say sod them but I can’t help but have a degree of sympathy for them. They were idiots but was the degree of outrage directed at them justified ? Of course not. They were expressing views that too many men in this country feel are perfectly ok. I find this pretty reprehensible but I hardly think that placing these two on the sacrificial alter is going to help address any of those issues.

They spent the first half of the week looking like fools, then moral pariahs and where are they now. I suspect the role they fulfil now is that of martyrs to the cause of PC gone mad. And it’s a role that the Daily Mail will have absolutely no problem unblushingly exploiting the next time they want to write a hateful piece about uppity women demanding to be treated fairly.