Saturday 30 January 2010

John Terry's scandal stories - a victory for tabloid bell-ends, not for free speech

Really, do we have to know all the details of John Terry's infidelities?  No, not really.  It's not like he threw a game or killed a neighbour and disposed of the body with acid is it?  He hasn't fiddled homeless Haitian eathquake victims out of powdered milk in order to buy a gold plated Rolls Royce. It's no big deal.  But here are the tabloids, supported by the "World's biggest bell-end" Max Clifford, claiming that the lifting of an injuction brought out by John Terry to keep the story out of the papers is in some way a victory of free speech over draconian privicy laws.

It is not. It is simply purient tittle-tattle.

There is no free speech justification for this, there is no public interest argument.  The tabloids exist on the back of the misadventures of people in the public eye, alternating with contrived, exaggerated or simply made up stories protraying the same people in a more sympathetic light.  Both of these types of stories are either supplied by, or fuelled by "the World's biggest bell-end" Max Clifford and his PR ilk.  Why do the tabloids keep regurgitating this rubbish?  Because they think that people enjoy reading about this sort of thing.  I would prefer they did some actual journalism from time to time, but they don't because that would cost money.  

Clifford has reported already signed up the lady involved with Terry, he said so on a radio interview on Five Live this morning that was two parts hypocritically damning of Terry and how he has brought it on himself, and one part smarmy in justification of his trade.  If you do not know his trade:  his trade is in the public humilation and misery of others and how to get make money out off it.  What an absolute arsehole.

The next time you hear about the papers moaning about how their sales are down, or how the internet is killing them because its free, consider this:  without the tabloids "the World's biggest bell-end" Max Clifford would not have any clients to buy his stories.  The world would be a finer place if Clifford was out of work

Whilst Terry's actions may be morally dubious, the reason the papers are going for him is for revenge for applying for a high court injunction.  They know that these injunctions are killing them, since thier trade is in the kind of idle tittle-tattle that these injunctions prevent them from publishing, so they are trying to teach Terry and any other public figures watching what will happen if you don't let them have their slice of salactiousness.  The outrage is driven and supplied entirely by the tabloids, not by public opinion.

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