30/12/2010

Tabloid bullshit of the month award December 2010

Break out the tinsel, jingle bell music and strong, strong booze - it's time for the December 5cc tabloid bullshit of the month award.

A bit of a disappointing field this month, what with a couple of numpties providing the tabloids with juicy quotes about banning Christmas so they didn't have to make shit up themselves. Maybe uponnothing's excellent demolition of the Winterval myth had something to do with that. I bloody well hope so.

We did have the Mail worrying about the number of black and brown people in the country and then having to point out it's not racist or anything; the same paper pretending Blue Peter had burnt something it hadn't; snow PANIC; the Star pretending some shit about Jordan again. That's the sort of thing.

The winner had to be Guy Patrick of the Sun with 'Al-Qaeda Corrie Threat'.  There's no link because it's gone already!



Here's the email that explains why:
Dear Newspaper Team,

I would be very grateful if you could forward this email on to Guy Patrick. I'm sure he'd want to know he's received an award!

Thank you.

"Dear Mr Patrick,

I'm writing to congratulate you on being the third recipient of journalism's newest prize. Time to put on the Black Lace CD and start doing the conga - your story 'Al-Qaeda Corrie Threat' has won the third 5cc tabloid bullshit of the month award.

It wasn't as crowded a field as you'd expect this month, with the sillypapers quoting Eric Pickles' war on Christmas nonsense rather than making it up themselves this year, but I'd like to think that no matter how crowded the tabloid bullshit field in any given month, some obviously made up nonsense about Al-Qaeda targeting Coronation Street would win.

Here's why you won:
  • You said there was an Al-Qaeda threat to Coronation Street!
  • You know like, Al-Qaeda, international terrorists? You said they were after Coronation Street, rubbish soap opera about Northerners.
  • You said Al-Qaeda were targeting Coronation Street! Seriously, this is pretty funny.
Quick as a flash, Greater Manchester Police were issuing denials on the very same day.
Usually, the 5cc tabloid bullshit of the month award goes out on the last Saturday of every month, but what with it being Christmas last Saturday I postponed them this month.
That turned out to be lucky, since in the last couple of days the PCC issued a ruling against your paper for printing such obvious rubbish, and you guys had to issue an apology. I don't think I've ever seen such a swift ruling before but you'd probably know more about that sort of thing than me. The Sun were obviously not even interested in trying to pretend the story was anything other than an obvious load of bum. Given that this is the paper of 'Freddie Starr ate my hamster' and 'Terror target Sugar', you must be pretty proud.

Anyway, you're now in the running for 5cc tabloid bullshitter of the year 2011, where the hack who gets most monthly awards between October 2010 and December 2011 takes the crown.

Good luck - with your skills, you stand a good chance. I look forward to other terrorism/popular television connections. 'Bin Laden is Eastenders extra', 'Striclty Come TERROR' or 'X Hamza' or something.

On a serious note, we're in a time where we're witnessing the rise of balaclava-headed football thugs, the EDL, attempting to provoke violent confrontations with Muslims in our towns and cities, a rise in the number of anti-Muslim attacks across the country and young Muslim feeling increasingly alienated from mainstream society. Churning out stories about how Muslims want to blow up popular things the readers of the world's biggest selling daily English language newspaper [love] - not helping.

This month, your bullshit was picked up by TabloidWatch and The Sun - Tabloid Lies. It was presumably not picked up by many other bloggers because they were busy laughing in exasperation at the obvious bullshitness of the whoe story. Holy Moly jumped on the story the very day it was published, saying what we all thought.

I'll be reproducing this letter over at Five Chinese Crackers. Please feel free to send an acceptance email in reply to this address, and I'll publish it too. (No hack so far has done this, which is a little disappointing).

Cheers then, and happy new year!

5cc"

That's it for this month and 2010, readers. Check back on the last Saturday to find out which soulless hack at which crap political polemic pamphlet disguised as a newspaper next month!

Onwards and hopefully downwards in 2011!

2 comments:

Ernie Goggins said...

In fairness to The Sun, Al-Qaeda has form in this area. Remember the Emmerdale plane crash?

Edward said...

I'd like to make an early nomination for next month's award. Unsurprisingly it's from the Daily Mail and it's their coverage of a small survey of 122 people carried out by Swansea University, on behalf of Faith Matters which they use to imply that not only are all Muslims terrorists, but that they are also converting young, white wives.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1343954/100-000-Islam-converts-living-UK-White-women-keen-embrace-Muslim-faith.html target=_blank

The sample size of 122 is taken from a much more balanced article on the same survey published by the Daily Telegraph.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/8238812/Surge-in-Britons-converting-to-Islam.html

I think it's worth comparing and contrasting the two. You know you are an extremist when the Telegraph can be called fair and balanced by comparison.