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Even by the Daily Mail’s low standards this is shocking, disgraceful stuff. Accuracy is important in any kind of journalism, of course, but it’s particularly important when you’re covering topics such as race relations and immigration. According to this furious Twitter thread by Marwan Muhammad, hardly anything in Malone’s article is true. It starts with… [more]
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This, by Nikhil Sonnad, is a superb analysis of what’s wrong with Facebook and why it’s sending the world to hell in a handcart. Much of it applies equally to Twitter. Sonnad begins with the story of Antonio Perkins, who was shot dead as he filmed a Facebook video. Although his death is tragic, the… [more]
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Two days ago, the Daily Mirror ran a horrifying story of video game addiction. “Fortnite Made Me A Suicidal Drug Addict”, the headline screamed. It was harrowing stuff describing “video game hell” that led to an abortive suicide attempt. Was it exaggerated? It certainly looks that way. Eurogamer is on the case. There’s no evidence to… [more]
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This New York Times story about the parents of Noah Pozner, who was murdered in the Sandy Hook massacre, is horrific. In the five years since Noah Pozner was killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., death threats and online harassment have forced his parents, Veronique De La Rosa and Leonard Pozner, to… [more]
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Just when you thought mainstream media couldn’t get any more stupid… Sarah Cruddas is a science journalist. Today, she was asked to take part in a TV debate about whether or not we landed on the moon. As she put it on Twitter: “It is not okay to debate science fact.” There is no debate… [more]
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Yet more evidence of the malign influence of US money on UK media and politics. Hope Not Hate analysed social media support for neo-nazi poster child Tommy Robinson and – surprise! – discovered that it’s overwhelmingly from foreigners. Only 40 per cent of the tweets using those hashtags came from UK users while 35 per… [more]
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A poster on Twitter reminded me of this 2016 story about the evangelical Family Research Council. It’s about the FRC’s five-point plan describing how to demonise trans people and make it impossible for them to live their lives. This isn’t a conspiracy theory. It’s on the FRC website, with the usual widely debunked nonsense. The… [more]
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When it comes to conspiracy theories, there are two kinds of theorists: the batshit insane, and the people who genuinely believe they’ve stumbled on a conspiracy. There was a good example of what I assume is the latter last week in The Observer, which published an astonishing piece about the link between mobile phones and… [more]
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Dr Louise Raw on Twitter: Every time @DailyMirror reports a domestic violence murder I have to @ them about their repugnant coverage. A FLING DID NOT DESTROY THIS FAMILY. A FLING DID NOT KILL ANNE SEARLE. HER HUSBAND DID. A woman died in terror- this is a tragedy, not a sexy romp. This is an… [more]
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Here’s a fascinating piece by Monica Hesse in the Washington Post: her (white, male) friend Tom felt that white men were vanishing from TV, so she sent him links to evidence that they weren’t. “I felt Tom was watching TV from another planet,” she recalls. Hesse tried to prove that Tom was wrong with easily… [more]
Read me in books
My debut memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, was a Scotsman book of the year and Damian Barr’s Literary Salon book of the week, and it was shortlisted for the 2023 British Book Awards book of the year in the Discover category.
My latest book, Small Town Joy, is a celebration of queer influences on and queer artists in Scots music and is out now.
I’m also a contributor to the excellent anthology Fierce Salvage, which is also out now.
