Real Talk: Irresponsible journalism
Ok, I’m not going to pretend I’ve never created click-bait headlines, I have plenty of times but it leads to good quality content and creates conversations that don’t lead to hate. I have to be accountable for what I write and take responsibility for my actions, if somebody more educated than me on the subject or I educate myself further and realise I was wrong it is on me to apologise.
Sometimes I write content for Google too.
What I don’t do is provoke hate by targetting an uneducated audience. I’ve seen this a lot recently. It’s not ‘fake news’, it’s irresponsible journalism but it also highlights how backwards we are, we criticised Hungry for football fans booing footballers taking the knee but there’s people in Sheffield commenting on Facebook posts openly using racist language. They aren’t even hiding, we can see who they are, it’s Facebook, there’s their name and a photo, these people aren’t creating fake profiles to troll the ‘lefties’ and ‘snowflakes’, they think it’s ok to discriminate others who are a different colour, nationality, gender or sexual orientation.
I’m sure it happens in every city in the UK and it’s probably not a new thing but I’ve been looking at online media from a different angle recently and noticed something, the insistence to go on and on and on about controversial topics as they have high engagement rates which are good for Facebook algorithms.
Controversial ‘comedian Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown was canceled (literally) from Sheffield last week. He was booked to play the Sheffield City Hall next year but the Sheffield City Trust, part of the council that run venues in the city canceled the show as they say it doesn’t reflect the values of the venue or the city. I understand where they are coming from but don't agree with the action.
Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown isn’t for me, I wouldn’t go and see him even if I was paid to, I’d like to think society had moved on from this kind of comedy that was big in ‘60’s, ‘70’s and ‘80’s but the fact that he was booked to play the City Hall appears that is not the case. My perception of Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown is that he’s a racist, sexist and homophobic however, that would make me very hypocritical having being a long-term defender of Tyler, the Creator who was banned from the UK for 3 years because of racist, sexist and homophobic language in music from his debut album and inciting hate. Ok, there is a huge difference in this, which is that Tyler wrote his material as a teenager, when nobody was listening to him, it was shock tactics, it was written from the perception of a fictional character. Tyler had toured the UK during these times, he was banned years later when he had grown up, a lot. He doesn’t drink, do drugs,, he came from a poor background and he now runs several successful businesses, employing people. He's inspiring. He wouldn’t have been banned if he was white.
It’s hard for me to support banning Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown if I’m defending Tyler. Comedians are playing a character when they are on stage and they are writing a story when creating their show. Some people like violent films, involving murder, rape, guns and drugs. I don’t find jokes targeting different races, genders or sexual orientations funny but some people do and some people are happy to pay to see it (300 tickets had already bought tickets) and that is fine.
This isn’t the first time Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown has been banned from performing but The Star’s constant ‘news’ stories on this have caused friction amongst followers and the news has gone nationwide. He’d only sold 300 tickets, there’s been over 23,000 people who have signed a petition against the cancellation (if they cared that much why didn’t they buy a ticket…?) saying that the council are taking away their ‘freedom’, which is a bit strong. They are even planning a protest LOL and anybody who agrees with the cancellation is a ‘lefty’ or a ‘snowflake’.
On Monday The Star ran THREE news stories about this which sparked heated arguments on Facebook in a city that is already becoming divided and their reporting is only making things worse. He might not be racist, sexist or homophobic but the perception of him suggests he is.
When the government announced that they will be accepting immigrants in from Afghanistan The Star wrote a story about this, fair enough, it’s news and it’s something their readers should know about. Unfortunately, the comments in the Facebook post were littered with racial tones and sparked debates. The Star, along with Sheffield Online and South Yorkshire Live followed this up with ‘debates’ such as, asking readers if they would let Afghan’s who’ve fled their war-torn country into their home (like a lodger... odd). Instead of showing any signs of empathy it was fueled with hate and openly racial slurs (do people not understand that using this kind of language on the internet could affect them in their real life). Afghans are clearly not welcome in the city. Somehow, the subject then took a twist as comments changed into “What about our veterans? They need housing too”. I had no idea that homeless veterans was a ‘thing’.
Whilst all of this was going on a 5 year old, from Afghanistan fell from a hotel in Sheffield and died, somebody wrote a racist remark about this on social media, they were caught and arrested. Both The Star and Sheffield Online wrote about this, saying how disgusting it was that somebody should write vile comments online, like they haven’t read comments on their own posts about Afghan’s seeking safety. C’mon guys...
Sheffield has never felt so divided and if you say anything against ‘the mob’ you’re a ‘lefty’ and a ‘snowflake’. Casual racism is dangerous and it’s becoming normalised.
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