Sun Harasses Teenage Girl

The press has always proved touchy when it comes to explaining their dependance on “The Dark Arts”, especially in the wake of the phone hacking business, but nobody seriously pretends that practices such as blagging targets’ personal details, and getting information from sources that should be confidential - like Police records, the NHS, banks, and the like - does not still go on. Especially at the Murdoch Sun.

A young woman called Abby - we do not need to know any more about her - started the #milifandom campaign recently, partly in response to hostile and slanted coverage given to the Labour leader. At the age of 17, she is too young to appear on the electoral roll, yet the Super Soaraway Currant Bun got hold of her address, and that of her grandmother, and proceeded to doorstep them both. Think about that.

Abby at first questioned why the Sun would do such a thing: “I understand why the Sun wanted to interview me but  … A) I said on here I wasn't giving interviews, very clearly  … B) why my nan?” Why indeed. And it was interesting to see some quite aggressive questioning of her, especially that the Mirror had also called. However: “But Mirror did knock after part of my location had been revealed. Sun after I said nothing”.

This did not stop the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog - Sun columnists, remember - to dishonestly tell “All those tweeting how terrible it is that @TheSunNewspaper sent journalists round to the #milifandom founder, so did the @theSundayMirror”. This had no effect: “I am a 17 year old girl and I'm less scared to stand up to Murdoch than David Cameron, a 48 year old man who is PM”.

Yes, an “A” Level student shows more bottle than Young Dave: “It's nice joining the 'Rupert Murdoch doesn't like me' club. We know we've done something right @Ed_Miliband … I have had enough of Murdoch and his sympathisers, disgraceful that one of them is actually in charge of the country”. Wasn’t such a good idea to doorstep her, eh Rupe?

The aggressive questioners, invariably from the right, and trying to play the “Look over there at the Mirror” game, didn’t fare any better, as Abby confirmed “Mirror sent after I revealed my location. Sun way way before … Apparently they got my address from the electoral roll. Which is funny, because I can't vote and am not on it”.

And she’s got some questions the Sun will need to answer: “Also: if they were only interested in politely asking my questions, why knock on my grandma? What does she have to do with it?” Those hacks will also have to explain how they lost the Tories a voter: “Another thing, my dad actually only found out about #milifandom because of reporters, sent me this text”. He used to vote Tory. He won’t be doing that next Thursday.

Abby has good grounds to take the Sun to IPSO, and it will be interesting to see how they excuse this latest slice of bad press behaviour. It’s a troubling world where a 17 year old girl expresses a favourable opinion of a politician and gets harassed for it.