Dylan Sharpe - claims to be a grown-up
Fast forward to this week, and Sharpe, as I observed last year, has become another right-wing hire for the empire of Creepy Uncle Rupe, installed as “Head of PR” for the Super Soaraway Currant Bun, and reporting directly to managing editor Stig Abell. And as part of his role, he has landed himself with his own adversarial politics.
Look everyone, it's a bit of BANTER! He's a LEGURND!! Where's your sense of humour, rotten lefty feminists?!?
Moreover, he brought the adversarial politics very directly on himself: as the Sun played the field with its Were-They-Weren’t-They teasing of readers over the future of Page 3 topless pictures, the decision was taken to put one in yesterday’s paper. Sharpe could not contain his glee, and Tweeted a preview to several people, including Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman. Yes, he sent her an unsolicited nude photo.
Someone is trying to tell him something gently
No doubt those right-leaning Clever People Who Talk Loudly In Restaurants thought this was jolly clever, and only a bit of banter. I mean, where’s everyone’s sense of humour? But when Kay “surly” Burley from Sky News (“first for breaking wind”) found adversely upon the idea, Sharpe must have known he was in trouble. It got worse: poverty campaigner and food writer Jack Monroe called it “Creepy, abusive harassment”.
Someone else is being rather more direct
So, in a rare departure for Rupe’s downmarket troops, Dylan Sharpe said sorry. Except he didn’t really say sorry. His statement, as related by BuzzFeed News, let everyone know who he is, how big a story Page 3 going, or not going, was, how “the People’s Paper had done it again”, how he’d had a “cheeky dig” (see - it’s just a bit of banter) at some media commentators, and eventually, how he’d actually made a mistake.
And someone else is being more direct still
Then he whined about how Twitter had turned against him, blubbed at the HuffPost UK for daring to run comment pieces, claimed to have received “death threats”, and how someone from the Independent who should have been writing about something else, honestly, had dared to have an opinion. Then, as the very end, he said “I want to apologise”. But he didn’t really apologise. Because he’s an oily creep.
Sniff! Blub!! It's not fair!!!
He even gave his very own confirmation of Olbermann’s Dictum (“the right exists in a perpetual state of victimhood”): after Grace Dent correctly asserted that “This isn’t an apology. It’s gloating and drawing attention to his ‘banter’”, Sharpe bawled “please Grace, it’s an apology - don’t start the hate again”. Yeah, when he does it, it’s “banter”, but when anyone criticises him, it’s “hate”. How’s that “adversarial politics” going now, eh?
2 comments:
When you're 0wned by Kay Burley, you're in trouble.
It is completely ridiculous to suggest that the only way to get men to read about politics or football is to include a photograph of a topless woman. Or is that only working-class men, in the heavily public school world of the redtop press?
Media women defending Page 3, will your future copy be illustrated with topless pictures of yourselves? Or is that just the only way that the common girls can get into the papers?
Germaine Greer was right Tuesday’s Channel 4 News. In The Guardian, she pointed out, the men are the news and the women are the advertising. It is not alone in that.
But Chloe Goodman was more articulate than either Greer or Harriet Harman. Laura Lacole was also very sharp on This Week. Why has it taken Page 3 to discover them, or Katie Price, who is now a forthright Sun on Sunday columnist?
Oh, well, how about this? If we must tolerate the return of Page 3, then replace News in Briefs with a full-length opinion piece by the model. That would at least bring the views of any working-class women into the media.
Then again, how about an opinion column by a working-class woman in any of the newspapers, or on any of the websites, that rightly campaigned against Page 3? Or, for that matter, any of those which opposed that campaign? We live in hope.
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