One endless source of material for bloggers is Twitter
gaffes. We’ve all done it – put something in a Tweet that might have been
better advised remaining unsaid, or relaying information that should have been
sent by Direct Message – but when those who set great store by gaffe spotting drop
the Twitter clanger, it is particularly enjoyable to call them out. Especially
today’s subject.
The rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog has, inexplicably, been
given a column by the Daily Star Sunday,
most downmarket rag of the Dirty Des portfolio. Equally strangely, the
perpetually thirsty Paul Staines, who frequently asserts that what he calls the
“Dead Tree Press” is finished,
considers this a great achievement. Most of the paper’s readers probably don’t
even notice.
But this consideration does not deter Staines, who proudly announced
just after mid-day on Saturday that he had “just
filed” the latest Fawkes column (and note that, like his tame gofer, the
odious flannelled fool Henry Cole, he knows how to talk just like a proper
journalist, even though neither of them are). But later in the day came a
setback, which Staines also relayed on his open Twitter feed.
“We got lawyered”
he told Cole six hours later. But then The Great Guido had second thoughts and
apparently deleted the entry from his timeline (below). And there it would have
remained, had the flannelled fool not Retweeted it. This did not get picked up
by the deletion attempt. The impression is given that something was removed
from the Fawkes column by Des’ lawyers.
Moreover, it also looks as if Staines originally intended to
send Cole a DM, not Tweet the news openly, rather like Lib Dem MP Chris Huhne,
whose gaffe was pored over by the Fawkes blog at length, and with much sneering
and jeering. So, Fawkes folks, what exactly “got lawyered”? What part of that “copy” that was dutifully “filed”
got “spiked” or just re-worded to
avoid any comeback?
And, one has to ask, if Dirty Des’ legal eagles are being
told to go over the Fawkes column before it gets passed, will it survive the
next – inevitable – round of Des’ cuts? Staines has already been less than
unequivocal as to whether he and Cole were actually being paid for their
efforts, so I’m not expecting a straight answer, but the less than dynamic duo
could be judged not to be worth the candle.
Not that they’re bothered about the Dead Tree Press, you
understand. Another fine mess, once again.
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