Mail Skwawkbox Hypocrisy

The Mail Online, which the Daily Mail’s legendarily foul mouthed editor wants his readers to know is a totally different entity to his paper and its Sunday stablemate, has been indulging in a routine hit job, “exposing” the man behind the left-leaning blog Skwawkbox. The site’s so-called “Associate Global Editor” Jake Wallis Simons, considered by some to be a journalist, has authored the hit piece, for which he may be thrown a biscuit.

I've got f*** all to do with this company I get hundreds of thousands in bonuses from, right, c***?!?!? Er, with the greatest of respect, Mr Jay

But what is the point of this exercise, other than to tell its target that the Mail knows who he is, probably knows where he lives, may well know a significant amount of information about his immediate family members, and we should not ask too many questions about how the inmates of the Northcliffe House bunker came by any of it?

In any case, let’s stat at the very beginning, as it’s a very good place to start. “Revealed: Far left blogger behind 'fake news' story that government is gagging media over true scale of Grenfell deaths is corporate boss who sells services to the NHS” is the headline. What relevance does their target’s status have to the work Skwawkbox performs? None at all.

Mail Online readers are told that their target “is a successful corporate CEO”. Is that some kind of crime? Aren’t those the kinds of people the Mail likes to champion? Ah, but we are also told “Comes as BBC blasted for inviting 'alt-left' blogger and editor to Question Time”. What relevance does Skwawkbox, and this story, have to the editor of The Canary being invited on to a Question Time panel? None at all.

Unless, of course, Mail Online thinks it OK to kick Dacre, Geordie Greig or Martin Clarke because the Beeb asks Fraser Nelson or Tom Newton Dunn to do some punditry for it. There is no relevance to this association at all. Moreover, there is no relevance in saying of their target “In 2015, he joined forces with two other entrepreneurs and invested £400,000 in high tech equipment to set up the company [he runs]”. None at all.

Although one could ask when anyone from the Daily Mail or Mail Online ponied up £400k to help get a business off the ground, a question to which the answer would most likely be that none of them ever did. But what of that “fake news” claim?

Ah well. When Wallis Symonds tells “Skwawkbox is noted for running stories that seem to have been briefed by Corbyn's inner circle, including insider quotes that suggest links with to senior Labour members”, he has to use “seem to” and “suggest”, because he doesn’t know. But, as Zelo Street has told, because here we do know, “Skwawkbox has NEVER had any contact with Jeremy Corbyn’s office”.

To try and pretend otherwise is, sad to say, getting extremely adjacent to Fake News, something with which the Dacre doggies are all too familiar. They lied about Byline Media, they lied about Andy Miller, they lied about countless Slebs to whom they had to pay damages and costs, and they commission copy from Fake News pushers at Breitbart.

The Mail and Mail Online have no room to call “Fake News” on anyone. They have no reason to run this story, other than to monster and threaten their target. Worse, their hacks and their cheerleaders would scream blue murder if anyone else did it to them. Jake Wallis Simons is the lowest kind of hypocrite. So no surprise there, then.