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Wednesday 30 August 2017

Guido Fawked - Channel 4 Climbdown

It was only last Thursday that Zelo Street caught the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog overreaching themselves: after trying a nudge-and-wink smear against Owen Jones, they came badly unstuck when their suggestion that all was not above board with one of Jones’ recent crowdfunding efforts was shown to have missed the most basic of research. There was nothing untoward. They caved.
Behold the occupant of the moral high ground

But those who thought The Great Guido might think twice before opening mouth and inserting boot thought wrong: yesterday they were at it again, telling readers “Channel 4’s Assed Baig Out After Promoting Terror-Supporting Islamist”. The broadcaster had received a complaint about an item whose participants included one Nadia Chan, and so had removed the online video pending investigation.
Assed Baig

This is standard procedure for Channel 4: the same happened to an item about the Libyan community in Manchester recorded in the wake of the Arena bombing, the latter catching pro-am motormouth Katie Hopkins unaware (not, admittedly, a challenging proposition). But then the Fawkes massive heard that Baig had left Channel 4: they immediately added 2 and 2, but as so often, came up with a number greater than 4.
Sadly for The Great Guido, Baig had not been ousted from Channel 4 because of the item featuring Nadia Chan. He duly put them straight: “I left @Channel4News on August 9, before the piece on Muslim women went out. A decision that I had informed them of at least a month before … My decision to leave has got nothing to do with that piece, nor was I forced out anyway. Anything stating otherwise is inaccurate”.
The Fawkes rabble had been caught with trousers well alight once more. Would they carry on and hope no-one noticed? Perhaps they would just tell Baig to sue them if he thought he was hard enough. Sadly for The Great Guido, he was reduced to a mealy-mouthed climbdown, which was quietly slipped out in the hope that no-one would notice. But the post had already been screen shotted - and there was another dead giveaway.
Before ...

The headline was bodged to read “Channel 4‘s Assed Baig Out Amid Promoting Terror-Supporting Islamist”. The first line of the post was also amended to use “amid” instead of “after” - it now reads “A senior reporter has left Channel 4 News amid presenting a package last week promoting a racist Islamist who supported ramming attacks”. Yes, the blog run by someone who once proposed joining forces with the BNP calling “racist”.
... and after ...

But the dead giveaway is that the URL still reads “https://order-order.com/2017/08/29/channel-4s-assed-baig-out-after-promoting-terror-supporting-islamist“. And then the Fawkes rabble ends the post with “The spokesman also confirmed that Baig left Channel 4 News before the piece went to air”. In other words, it was screamingly obvious that his departure was not as a result of the report being broadcast.
... which means this

The Great Guido is starting to make a habit of this crap-research-followed-by-abject-climbdown business. Another fine mess.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nobody could blame Baig for leaving Channel 4 News. Especially if he took a long, hard look at the appalling shite of "international news" manufactured by Hilsum, Rugman and Miller - all of whom are dishonours graduates of the Murdoch/Rothermere School of Propaganda and Lies.

Meanwhile, there are rumours Phil Redmond is bidding to take Channel 4 to Merseyside. But is there anybody out there who believes for a moment the establishment wants to disturb its mainstream media Londoncentric control and regional clerical yesman outpost in plastic Manchester?......No chance. But a cigar for trying, Phil.

Matthew Blott said...

I'm no fan of Guido (I don't RT his stuff when it appears in my Twitter timeline) but Tim Fenton really might think twice about vigorously defending someone like Baig. A simple test: suppose a white conservative reporter had introduced a puff piece about white working class kids 'busting stereotypes' and one of them described themselves as a Christian fundamentalist (about as close as I can think of as someone describing themselves as an Islamist). Not only that but a quick cursory glance at our hypothetical fundamentalist's social media output revealed them to be a vile racist and fan of Hitler's Germany. Would Tim Fenton be so quick to defend the reporter? As Mr Fenton himself might say, we'll just leave that one there.

Tim Fenton said...

@2

Had you read the post, you would see that I am not defending Baig.

The post merely points out that the Fawkes blog got it wrong, were caught out, and slipped out a bodged correction, clearly hoping no-one noticed.

There has been no defence of Baig - I merely pointed out that he left C4 of his own volition and that his departure was not connected to the piece the Fawkes blog suggested caused it.

And having said that, I will indeed just leave that one there.

Anonymous said...

Yeah but you don't bother to condemn Baig do you. Nadia Chan a nasty vile foul mouthed racist and pigs like her need outing and shaming jusy like EDL and BNP racists. A bit of balance is in short supply from your side AS WELL