No newspaper trades on its past quite like the Murdoch
Times and its Sunday stablemate, and so it pretentiously styles itself the
Times of London, as if to remind its audience that here we have the original and genuine holder of the title. But this belies the reality, that since 1981 the
Times’ journalism has been on a steady downhill path, aided and abetted by a drive to reduce costs and increase revenue.
Camilla Long
The pretence that this is the paper that Roy Thomson owned, pioneering the greatest of investigative journalism, is merely a fig-leaf disguising yet another Murdoch clickbait factory, a reality that was brought out into the open yesterday in no style at all by shock hack Camilla Long, an excruciatingly posh gel of impeccable pedigree who is, as a result, totally out of touch with those of us who exist in the real world.
Her masthead photo illustrates superbly the target audience: immaculate complexion, well-groomed blonde hair with dark roots nicely disguised, lips at the ready, glasses to project the faux intellectual look, all designed to draw in those sad old men and bedroom incels upon whom the paper increasingly depends for a little marginal subscription revenue.
You'll have to speak up, I'm a bit Mutt And Jeff
And then - blam! - the shock
premise of the article, as readers are assailed by the title “
Lighten up, facemask Nazis. I was having my nails done, not filing my way out of jail”. This is not any old comment piece, it has NAZIS in it. In face masks. Was this some kind of re-enactment of World War 2? Sadly, no: it was a beautician’s salon in north London.
Demonstrating her common touch, Ms Long lets us know “
On Monday I enjoyed my first pedicure in five months”. Five months without a pedicure? DAHLING, High Viry GHASTLY! High TIRRIBLE! Five months and NAY PEDICURE? High can one heve MENEGED? It must have seemed like an ETERNITY! The pain! The shame! The irrelevance!
But enough: the lordly pretentiousness is there for a purpose, and that, apart from the gauche self-promotion, is to generate clicks. Thus the shock value of those NAZIS, referenced again in her Tweet advertising the piece, along with its blatantly false premise: “
There is zero clear evidence on the effectiveness of masks. The government has said we don't need to wear them. Now we're told we must. And so the shops fall silent, our high streets die. All this is devastating for human relations. Column on mask Nazism”.
That Ms Long is indulging in evidence-free clickbait was underscored by the heroic ratio generated by her Tweet, along with those correcting her “
Zero clear evidence” assertion, for instance Fionna O’Leary (see
HERE) and David Schneider (see
HERE). As to her use of the term “Nazism”, the adverse comment was yet more severe.
The Auschwitz Museum tried to move her focus gently, telling “
An education suggestion: here is a column (actually a full online lesson) about the development of Nazism [link HERE] … We also remind that visitors at [The Auschwitz Museum] are requested to cover their faces inside the buildings”. Sadly, the message will most likely not get through.
After all, this is yet another well-off and obscenely overpaid hack following the management line, and doing whatever it takes to keep the clicks rolling in.
For Ms Long, that will not change any time soon.
Reality is, after all, for the little people.
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6 comments:
Here's a recent interview with Larry Brilliant, the famous doctor who did the 2006 Ted Talk about pandemics and spent much of the 1970s in India treating Smallpox. Is fair to say Larry knows a bit about dangerous illnesses...
https://www.wired.com/story/larry-brilliant-on-how-well-are-we-fighting-covid-19/
Couple of extracts: "He wears masks, of course, and seldom ventures outside his Marin County, California, home."
"This is a big fucking deal. If I would not be excommunicated from the world of science, I would call this an evil virus, but I can’t do that because I can’t impugn motives to it. But if I could, I would call it that. It’s certainly pernicious. This is the worst pandemic in our lifetime. "
"A sensible, nationwide requirement for those places where there are clearly going to be super-spreader events to stay closed: bars, indoor restaurants, churches, megachurches, the kinds of places that we know will spread the disease. Those places can’t be reopened."
Now am not sure what medical or technical qualifications Camilla has, or if she's had any experience treating deadly diseases but suspect she hasn't and she's another 'edgy' hack who thinks undermining public health measures is totally amusing, yah.
To be pedantic for a moment (it's not quite time for lunch yet), "The Times Of London" is how the Americans habitually refer to it. To an American, "The Times" means the New York Times (or possibly its Los Angeles namesake).
She's not "an intellectual".
She's a Murdoch moron with a peculiar accent.
I read the tweet, noticed she was a Murdoch lackey and jogged on.
Stop giving these Muppets your time and energy, Camilla is likely to seen wearing a mask come Friday, otherwise Waitrose and her other exclusive shops in Maida Vale won't allow her near their frontdoors.
If some must die for the economy to survive can it please be those who rant and moan about how pointless masks are and how they will damage business?
A lovely trade off...
What is it with these morons and thinking they know better than the Holocaust Museum about references to Nazism? First John Boyne (look it up if you'd like), now Long. Who'll be next to do so?
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