15Feb/095
‘Husband’ and ‘wife’
From the BBC:
'Husband' quizzed over stab death
Is he a husband? Is he her husband? Not sure, just bung it in quotes, that'll make it all right!
And from the Screws:
Hmm, so Frank Lampard's been dumped by his fiancee*, how can we convey that in a headline? Fiancee is a bit too long of a word, let's just call her wife and bung it in quotes, that'll make it all right! Sure, she's not actually married to him, but if we call her his wife, and put it in quotes, that makes it all nice and OK again, doesn't it?
* This may be entirely untrue anyway, given that it's on the front of the News of the World.
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February 15th, 2009 - 14:57
I can imagine the editorial meeting – ‘Well we could put fiancee but it won’t leave quite enough space for the picture of a cancer patient to be as brutal and distasteful as it possibly could be’
Anyway AV you seem to be unusually silent over the reporting of Jade’s cancer…
I keep thinking about writing about it but I just can’t put it into words how I feel – I just want to write DISTASTEFUL 500 times and then vomit and weep and poke myself in the eyes with forks.
February 15th, 2009 - 15:26
I have been reading quite a lot of it, yes, but I’m not sure if now is the time to write about it…? Don’t know. Will have a think.
February 15th, 2009 - 16:27
I remember an old stand-up routine in which David Baddiel talked about the press’ love of giving people middle names to remind the reader who they were, after he became “David ‘That’s You That Is’ Baddiel”. He wondered whether this would lead to ‘Anne ‘Cot-Death Diamond’ and ‘Roy ‘Cancer’ Castle’.
Have a look at the stories on the Sky News website sidebar here. Amongst the headlines, there’s ‘Cancer Jade To Marry’. Not sure whether they thought ‘Jade to Marry’ wasn’t long enough, or maybe whether they worried that there were so many Jades in the public eye that we needed that extra reminder to think “Ah, the cancer one”
February 15th, 2009 - 18:53
When journalist John Diamond (Mr Nigella Lawson as he was then) wrote profusely about his battle with throat cancer he was judged as brave and courageous by all for doing it.
Why’s Goody any different?
Is it a class thing? He was a well-connected middle class journo, she’s a dimwit from Bermondsey with racist previous.
Maybe it’s because it’s all so brazenly done as a money-making venture that makes it not sit right.
It’s not her fault though. That she can sell her own death as entertainment says more about the fucked up state of our media become than it does about her.
February 15th, 2009 - 21:52
I think I speak for everyone when I say, it’s the tragedy we all feared.
/sarcasm