The exertions of the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and
his tame gofer, the flannelled fool Henry Cole, at the Guido Fawkes blog have
taken so much out of the less than dynamic duo that they have left the field of
play, with the Fawkes blog at present in the less than seasoned hands of intern
Alex Wickham. So there can be no pretence of exclusivity, or closeness to
whispers from the corridors of power.
Don't worry, he's not coming back just yet
Intstead, Wickham is falling back on scouring the web and
inflating gossip and rumour into what appear to be full-blown stories. But, as
this morning’s attack on the appalling Piers “Morgan” Moron shows, they are nothing more than the usual mix of
exaggeration and smear. “CNN Put
Piers On Probation” says the headline. But they haven’t. So what’s the
actual story?
The source of the Fawkes blog post is
an article in the New York Post, which
to no surprise at all is under the less than benign stewardship of Rupert
Murdoch, who has a personal stake in the cable news business, being the owner
of Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my
arse). So Rupe and his troops trying to destabilise the opposition should surprise
nobody.
No they haven't
Moreover, while the Fawkes blog asserts “June saw Piers drag the channel’s viewing
figures to a 21-year low”, the fact of the matter is that Moron, like or
loathe him, is
CNN’s highest rating host over a one-hour time slot (the only way that
Anderson Cooper’s numbers can be made to look better is to add the figures for
both his slots together). Your highest
rating host doesn’t drag anything.
And, while it would surprise no-one, given CNN’s dreadful
recent managerial record, if they were to sack Moron tomorrow, it would make
little sense, given they are already having to rely on Cooper to cover two
weekday evening slots, and replacements are likely to be harder to persuade
than to identify. And the new ideas that the Post is talking about are late night and weekend ones.
Really quality captioning there
As to the quality of the Post
report, I will comment no further, other than to observe that the top photo is
captioned “FACES OF FUTURE: CNN’s only
two stars right now are Anderson Cooper (above)”. That kind of guff may
satisfy the Fawkes blog, but should not trouble anyone who wants to take the
subject seriously. So why does Staines encourage his latest gofer to recycle
and exaggerate thus?
Simples. Staines
has set his sights on downing Moron as a way of showing that he really has the
power, although he’s got nothing to go on, and more than likely never will
have. But, as with Chris Huhne, he’ll claim credit should anything happen to
Moron in the near future. In this way, the self-perpetuated myth of The Great
Guido is duly burnished and then sold on to the foolish and gullible.
Until then, it’ll be more second-hand rumour. Another fine mess, once again.
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