Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

More hatred towards a grieving mother

(graph by mzungu on b3ta.com)

I don't think it's going too far to say that Alison Pearson is a horrid witch who should suffer the fate of Tamora. But she's not the only guttersnipe at the Mail who's there to sneer at other people and the way they live their lives - she's not the only one to take aim at a grieving mother and gloat over the death of her children. No. It's not just Pearson. It's endemic in this dirty, nasty newspaper which may have been about journalism fifty or seventy years ago, but now is about disgraceful, unwarranted intrusion into the private lives of ordinary people.

Far from leaving the murder of British teenager Scarlett Keeling alone, they're pursuing the dead girl long after her death, getting their grubby mates at the South West News agency to take photos of the caravan site where the family lived. Oh... caravan site. Well you know what's coming next don't you. Dirty gyppos! Evil pikeys! Scum! All the prejudices start oozing out at Mail Towers. How could Fiona McKeown be a responsible mother when her children live in a caravan? How could she? Why couldn't she be someone in Surrey with inherited wealth who happens to have a lovely semi-detached? Why not? It's obviously her fault for not being lucky in the fruit machine of modern Britain and not having inherited money. Therefore, condemn her when she's at her weakest.

An empty milk bottle, tie-dye sheets pinned over the window instead of curtains, discarded black bin liners and a sleeping bag on the floor, and the contents spewing carelessly from a chest of drawers. On top of them the remnants of a lost childhood - a plastic duck and young girl's jewellery box.

Teenager lives in 'messy environment' shocker! Wow, she must be the only teenager in the entire country whose bedroom doesn't look like a fucking operating theatre.

As these pictures show, this is the squalor in which Scarlett Keeling was being raised. It is a million miles from the fantasy world of a wholesome family upbringing painted by her mother Fiona MacKeown in the past two weeks.

They show nothing. Hey and guess what, when I go on holiday I don't necessarily tidy everything up in case I die and some fucking bastard news agency come snooping round taking pictures. And how did these cunts get into the caravan in the first place? Someone let them into to a dead girl's home? Isn't that sick in the extreme? Is this what the Daily Mail and its news agencies do for a story? Is that all right? is that ethical? Is that fair? Is that in the public interest? What have we learned? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. It is disgusting, disgraceful, anti-journalistic drivel. It has been sanctioned at the very highest level and clearly everyone is very happy about it. This sort of thing is acceptable, if you're the Mail. Snooping round a dead person's home. That's all right, if you're the Mail, and you don't like the way they lived, and you want to slag off someone's mum for not being as orthodox as you think they should be.

But the reality was clearly very different: a bunch of scruffy caravans, surrounded by empty beer bottles and rubbish. The only sign of life is a pack of dogs snarling at anyone approaching the perimeter fence.

Not that that put off your fucking mates at South West News from coming in and taking the pictures, did it? I wonder if that photographer was really pleased with himself for a good day's work. I wonder if they really enjoyed that assignment. Yeah, let's take some pictures of where a dead girl lived so that she can be slagged off by the know-it-all fucksticks at the Mail. What a brilliant career I have.

world away from the hippy innocence Fiona has portrayed to date. But then, as a tattooed New Ager and mother of nine, Fiona MacKeown is no stranger to criticism.

From cunts like the Mail and Pearson.

At the start of the week it emerged that [McKeown] herself could face interrogation at the hands of the Indian police.

Er, no it didn't. Because she won't. But put in the rumour as fact, why don't you.

They were investigating whether her "negligence" in any way contributed to her daughter's fate. Yesterday this was ruled out, but many still point the finger at her.

Cunts like the Mail.

"I feel responsible for being naive and too trusting," was all she would say. "I certainly do not feel I was negligent."

Naivety or negligence? Some would argue that that question goes to the heart of not just this sorry tale but Fiona's lifestyle in the round.

Some? Who, Tim Rawstorne? You? If it's you, say it's you. Don't go mincing your words, you're a fucking journalist. At least, that's what you pretend to be. Enjoying your job slagging off the parents of dead people? Slagging off people for living in caravans? Is that easy for you to do in your lovely office in London? Probably popping down Pret-a-Manger later for a fucking enormous sandwich that costs about twenty quid? Are you? Easy for you to judge others, isn't it? Never known difficulties with money? Never seen anything of life outside the home counties? Have you? Doesn't matter anyway, you're just paid to write this shit and insult the parents of dead people because you're a fucking automaton and you couldn't say no even if you did raise any slight moral qualms about the muck-raking cuntery that pays your mortgage.

She has nine children born to five different men, none of whom plays a day-to-day roll in their upbringing; the family's only discernible income is from state benefits; her older children, educated largely at home, drink and, in Scarlett's case, take drugs; and her eldest son, just 19, was left behind in Devon only to break his neck in a mystery car accident currently being investigated by British police

Smear, smear, smear, smear, smear. Smear someone for having a car accident. Smear someone for having sex. Smear someone for being on welfare. Smear someone for DRINKING ALCOHOL. Yeah, because doing something completely legal is something we should all frown upon, you utter cuntwad. Do they drink to excess? Have they been in trouble with the police? No, because you'd have fucking brought that up, Rawstorne. You motherfucker. How dare you call yourself a journalist. How dare you claim to be anything other than a guttersniping bastard. And you - a total cunt who slags off Scarlett's compassionate friends on the internet for saying

"Scaz - always ravin, goin out, getting stoned and bein off her face," reads one of several similar badly spelt internet tributes to the dead girl

Said that "nine children born to five different men, none of whom plays a day-to-day roll". Roll? Roll? Roll? You cunt. You illiterate cunt. How dare you. How fucking dare you slag off other people who can't spell when you can't do it your fucking self, you useless toerag. Who the fuck are you to claim you're the fucking acme of literature, eh? I've read what you've written, and it's a pile of stinking shit. Here are other people trying to show compassion and love, and you're making fun of them for not spelling things properly? What does that make you? A journalist? A man? Neither. Just a fucking wanker. You are scum. And you know you are.

Mail commenters are getting weary of this disgraceful approach, as well.

Is it really right to vilify this family because their home doesn't adhere to a middle class standard? Personally I think they have enough heartbreak to deal with right now without their living standards being called into question - it's really not the point here. Everyone can make bad judgement calls, let's not make this a class thing.
- Njk, London

Isn't this highly intrusive?
- Laura, Oxford

How dare you criticise all these people and, by implication, involve them in the murder of a daughter, friend, or acquaintance? A young girl has been murdered and for that there is no justification.
- Tw, Vimoutiers, France

Leave the poor woman and her family alone. She has just had her daughter murdered for Christ's sake.
- Major Hal Tweed Rtd, Hove Great Britain

Stop vilifying the mother. So her attitudes don't sit tidily along with standard ones.
- Gjones, Nuneaton

Fiona made a serious error of judgement, but showing pictures of how they live whether messy or not, doesn't take away the fact that her children are all clean, well-balanced, polite and intelligent. And I notice how close they all are. I wish more children like this lived where I live. Whether we agree or disagree with the way Fiona is bringing these youngsters up she is doing something right. She does so obviously love them very much.
- Heather Symonds, Gwent

So the caravan was messy inside. So what?
- Liz Ward, Huddersfield UK

I'll tell you so what. So Tim Rawstorne can decide he's so much better than these people that he can abandon all journalistic principles of objectivity and smear, smear and smear again, sticking the boot in to someone who can't answer back, slagging off someone else's lifestyle and implying it was to blame for the death of a daughter. What a brave man. I hope he's happy.

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

Related posts:

1. Here comes the hatred
2. Holy sweet mother of God, it’s the world’s worst writer ever
3. You can’t help but see the hatred oozing out
4. The hatred of otherness
5. Express in freefall: making money from racism, homophobia and hatred