Harry Cole - Say Sorry

A most unseemly row has broken out within the media world, and almost all of the aggression has come from one source: step forward the odious flannelled fool Master Harry Cole, still pretending to be a real journalist and now alleged to be “deputy political editor” at the Mail on Sunday. Master Cole has gone off on one over the actions of Helen Miller, a producer at BBC News, who does not appear to have done anything wrong.

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But she does, on occasion, provide the Twitter service known as Tomorrow’s Papers Today, which in turn feeds in to the BBC News blog The Papers, giving a digest of the new day’s front pages and the stories thus promoted. But today’s Mail on Sunday front page was not present when she Tweeted the first editions out last night.

This, it seems, was down to Ms Miller not being sure whether the MoS splash on Michael “Oiky” Gove was potentially actionable, given the allegations it makes. That, in turn, riled Master Cole, who as usual reverted to his bizarre claim that only he is breaking news (Zelo Street regulars will remember something similar in his recent attack on Owen Jones). “All that cash to admit they’re just not up to breaking news” he sneered.

It got worse in short order. “BBC sit there all day on your dime, then sneer when comfonted [sic] by others hard work. Pathetic”. Jeremy Mortimer attempted to put him straight. “She's not tweeting from a BBC account. She wasn't sneering, she was genuinely concerned about tweeting out something she saw as potentially libellous … That was the point. You have a legal department behind you, she hasn't. Facts eh?”

He also found time to put a snarky Twitter no-mark straight. “They've said countless times, that they do it because they're able to, not because it's part of their job description … God knows why they bother given the amount of grief they get”. Ms Miller responded “But wasting my time on a Saturday night,  unpaid, getting gyp from snarky folk (not you obviously) was perhaps never a great idea”. Meaning … what?

The meaning was spelt out in her response to Mortimer. “Thank you, Jeremy. Yes I was. I was just concerned people thought I was missing out the MoS deliberately. I should never have said anything. i do this in my spare time and the stress isn't worth it. I think I'll stop doing it now”. So well done and slow handclap to Master Cole.

Was he having a second thought about his rant? Not a bit of it. Gone midnight and Cole was now throwing his toys out of the pram at the Beeb’s Neil Henderson. “‘Sober up’ from sitting in the same seat for 14 hours writing. Come have a snark when you’ve done an actual shift … You are all news vampires”. What a clown.

So Master Cole actually had to pull his finger out and do some work for a change. The kind of thing that millions of Brits do day-in, day-out for a small fraction of the wad he trousers. Moreover, he conned his way into journalism via the Guido Fawkes blog. His inability to do the most basic research was the stuff of legend. His first Sun front page splash was a pack of lies. And his first one for the MoS consisted of taking dictation from the spooks.

Time for Harry Cole to say sorry to Helen Miller. And do it right away. That is all.

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