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Australian Prankstars Media Fail

Adam Carolla - the American comedian, radio and TV performer - once described a radio show as two dumb guys (people) killing (no pun intended) three hours.  He should know.  He is, by his own admission,  not very bright - although I think he's doing himself a huge disservice;  he's probably the best improviser and the quickest broadcaster on his feet working today - and he's has multiple seven figure radio and TV deals

230 countries, Fox News?

I know the nice people at Fox News are still upset that a Kenyan muslim won the election despite their four year hate campaign against him, but you'd think they'll have at least one person who can get something right in their building.

Captioning TuneIn CEO John Donham's interview with their Business Channel this morning they claimed that

Worst job in SA media: running @timeslive twitter account

Pic: @Sipho_Stuurman

If you think you've had a tough day, spare a thought  for the poor soul who mans (or womans, it's the 21st century) who runs the Twitter account of The Times.

I used to think that the journalists who "pound the road" to go and collect us the stories, package them and

I'm famous in, well wherever The Guardian is read

Now I know why Julius Malema says all those quotable things he says.  More importantly, I now know how he feels when he sees something he said a only a few hours prior appear in print.  But I suspect having newspapers present something I said a while ago as fresh utterances is something I'll have to confine to my

Daily Mail Mel B photoshop fail

Yes this picture was published by the most read "news" site in the world.

I know there's a rush to tell us what celebrities are wearing today and - depending on whether they want us to like them or hate them - manipulating the pictures to prompt us to either direction, but even The Daily Mail

News24 Hofmeyr Wiki story fail

According to News24, the act of being a member of the open source forum by which wikipedia pages are edited and using that privilege to edit a page, albeit with false if funny data, is now known as "hacking".

RIP journalism

Need I say more?

SAFM Media Show alternatives

I think I spoke too soon when I promised to upload SAFM podcasts.  It's proved to be more difficult than I had anticipated.

They use a different streaming format to all the other streaming stations so my system cannot record it.  But

Reuters ANC Afriforum agreement headline fail

The ANC and the white special interest group, Afriforum reached an agreement on Wednesday that effectively ended their court battle and culminated in the ANC pledging to stop their supporters singing the song which led to the court case in the first place.

Quite how they intend to achieve that is not yet clear but if you read the story on the Reuters website like I did you'd have come away with the impression that the agreement was between the ANC and all white inhabitants of South Africa.  In fact, the word "Afriforum" does not feature in the story until the second paragraph and we all know that on the internet people only read the headline, look at the pictures and head straight to the comments section to let the world know what they think about the story they have not read.

This is a huge fail and I'm surprised that three full days after the day it was published they have not edited the headline.

Daily Mail perving on 14 year old Elle Fanning fail

It looks like the Daily Mail is taking a page out of The Huffington Post by perving on underage girls.  They've gone after somebody named Elle Fanning.  No I don't know who or what she does but I doubt her parents will apprecieate the suggestion that she's "showing off her womanly curves" by a newspaper.

Keep it up Daily Mail.  With any luck she'll be on drugs and have cellulite before her 18th birthday then you can really go to town with her.

The Huffington Post punked by Doug Stanhope

Source: dougstanhope.com

The Huffington Post is making great strides in their quest of destroying whatever is left of journalism.  It would be hillarious if they weren't making bucket loads of money in the process.

You'd think after several original bloggers were spooked by Arianna money hoarding ways, nobody would want to want to touch that horrid organisation with a 10 feet pole.  But there appears to be no end of losers lining up to contribute to the destruction of what was once a noble profession.

One such person is somebody by the name of Mike Ragogna.  He proved that he has no business calling himself a journalist or interviewing people last week when he mixed up interviewee's numbers and called comedian Doug Stanhope instead of the Sex Pistols' John Lydon, was told that he had called the wrong number and did not heed the advice and proceeded to conduct the interview.  Doug Stanhope, being a comedian, saw this as a comedic opportunity and - although The Huffington Post have destroyed all the evidence of the interview - somebody managed to record the audio.  Here it is for your listening experience.




Maybe they should stick to slideshows of Kim Kardashian's ass.  I hear it's huge and she instagrams her pictures every hour.  There's very little margin for error there.

Moneyweb sexist headline fail

Those guys who occupy skyscrapers, wear nice suits and spend all day watching the stock prices and predict share price performances are so funny aren't they?

Do you know what your woman does with her money? Visa gives insights bit.ly/TPHRye #VISA
— Moneyweb News(@Moneyweb) October 29, 2012

They are so evolved they think that we've only just made it into the 50's and only men consume their product and they own their women.  Thanks for the confirmation that even some of the seemingly well educated people do indulge in casual sexism.

Well fellas, to answer your question, I do hope she gets herself some decent knickers.

Good Morning Ulster Jimmy Savile text fail

Since it was revealed that one of their favourite sons, the late Jimmy Saville was responsible for countless cases of sexual abuse on underage girls, the BBC has been in damage control mode.  So much so that when a prankster sent in a text to BBC Ulster, the presenter just read it out without a second though in an effort to get that much sought after contrary view.

With hilarious consequences.

News24 Voices editing fail

One of News24's opinion sections that has a lot of good writers and equally impressive number of clicks is News24Voices.  One of their good writers, and I think they're luck to have her, is Mandy Roussouw and as brilliant as I think she is, even she needs to be edited.

I'm afraid I'll never know why she finds the suggestion that the DA and Great Britain clandestinely plotting to depose the ANC government laughable because the piece is so badly written/edited I couldn't read past the first paragraph.

Daily Mail pulling the "bully" card

The Daily Mail wants you to know that it's the most read online news publication in the world, althought the New York Times is still disputing this claim, but they appear to be completely ignorant of the internet itself.  Because of the illusion of anonymity that comes with being able to spew bile to potentially billions of people from behind your keyboard, what you get online is human being at their most vicious.

Throw social media into the mix, you people trying to attract the attention of celebrities 24/7 by either

Huffington Post Twitter Fail

In an attempt to be snobbish about Jersey Shore, The Huffington Post revealed themselves to be employing semi-literate people.  And to answer their question, no Jersey Shore doesn't make me depressed as I've never watched it, but their grammar does.

Absolute Radio Twitter chat fail

listen to ‘Vicki Blight clearly needed more coffee this morning...’ on Audioboo


I think it's safe to say that Absolute Radio's Vicki Blight will never use the words twitter and chat in the same sentence again.  Fortunately for her Absolute Radio listeners are a fun bunch and I don't think any of them will feign offence and complain to Ofcom.

Keep it up Vicki, I need more of this audio.

EWN and "condoning" rape fail

In Premedia's EWN story about Hawks spokesperson Mcintosh Polela apparently facing disciplinary action, they quote an SAPS official as saying that they (SAPS) "condone rape issues".

Either the journalist missed "not" before condone, in which case it's a poorly constructed sentence or that's what the statement said and they quoted it verbatim, either way, it's very poor form from people who claim to be in touch and in tune.

SAFM podcasts fail

21/10/2012 - My recorder failed to record so I can't upload the podcast this week.  We'll try and rectify the problem for next week.

The SABC is defiantly refusing to step into the 21st century.  It's supposed to do all the things that commercial broadcasters either can't or won't do because they're not financially viable.  We then all chip in with the stealth tax commonly known as the TV licence fee and should be getting great programmes for it not the dross that populate the terrestrial channels.  Radio is not much better either.

If you're not a spotty teenager who wants to dance himself to exhaustion, you're out of luck if you don't leave in Gauteng or Western Cape as your only option for talk radio is SAFM.  And I've found it patchy at best.

The New Age Jerm cartoons fail

Since the words in newspapers are pretty much obsolete now, cartoons, especially good ones provide a ray of sunshine everytime I pick up a tree murdering newspaper.  Not only because of their ability to sum up the general mood of the readers but can make really bold statements and mitigate them with humour.  This is why I was saddened to hear that the ANC house journal The New Age had terminated their contract with their cartoonist, Jeremy Nell because his political cartoons were "not aligned with the paper's vision and mission"

I have never actually seen The New Age paper with my naked eye so I only read his website and if the rejected cartoons are anything go on, the writing has been on the wall for a long time. It's also astounding that the editor of what is supposed to be a national daily newspaper doesn't "like cartoons that make political judgements or statements" tells everything you need to know about his organ.

Zapiro put it well, if you read that newspaper look forward to "non-thinking cartoons".  I do hope Jerm gets another gig where he'd be allowed to do what he does best.  I'd say letting him go would TNA's loss, but that would be to assume that they wanted funny and thought-provoking cartoons to start with.

Wyclef Jean aggrandizing fail

TODAY I AM 43 YEARS OLD! I look And feel 26! U cant keep à good Man down! Keep à smile when they want you to frown! twitter.com/wyclef/status/…
— Wyclef Jean (@wyclef) October 17, 2012

Not exactly media but 20 years ago, paparazi would have had to climb fences to get a picture like this, but today celebrities tweet them out themselves directly to their fans and non-fans alike; and newspapers just grab and reprint them too, so this is the future of media and we're just a few years ahead of our time.

What they've yet to master is writing sentences that don't make them sound like sanctimonious assholes.  Case in point:  Wyclef Jean tweeting the above picture to let the world know that he's celebrating his 43rd birthday and that he's in good shape.  But he can't resist firing off an "inspirational quote", standard MO for celebrities because they must always inspire at every waking moment of their lives.  The inspirational tweet: "U cant keep à good Man down! Keep à smile when they want you to frown!"

Well, Mr Jean, if you happen to come across such a Man, please send him our way.

Mcintosh Polela, lazy journalism and faux outrage

I've always maintained that what happens on twitter should not constitute news.  That's where people go to live their lives in the parallel universe of cyberspace.  Journalists themselves insist that they tweet their personal views and  but it seems they don't offer the same courtesy to other people.  If you have a public profile, your tweets will be associated with your job; especially if they happen to not chime with their sensibilities.  

At least that's what Hawks spokesperson, Mcintosh Polela found out yesterday when he tweeted:

Admittedly it's not a happy-clappy tweet, which is the preferred twitter tone for public figures, but if you don't share his dark sense of humour, you'd just wince and move on.  Not if you're a lazy journalist looking for a cheap story to send to a news agency and knowing that news websites will lap it up and stir up some sort of scandal.  Predictably, two news sites have already published the SAPA story and moralists are queueing up to either express outrage and or demand and apology.

If only we journalists could tackle real news with the same amount of enthusiasm, maybe we wouldn't have a small amount of people robbing the country blind while the majority languish in abject poverty.  Somebody once said freedom of speech is wasted on South Africans and I fear they may have been right.

ENCA Jub Jub Silkour interview fail

Quite why the Jub Jub trial ended up as the media circus it became maybe a topic for another day, but when the verdict was read out this morning I expected rolling news channels to get legal professionals to explore his options.  I was too optimistic, as it turned out, the opinion of some rapper by the name of Slikour was deemed to be more valuable by ENCA.

I don't know what's worst, having this guy on or having the semi-literate anchor attempt to quiz him on what should be done to prevent similar tragedies from occurring in the future.  If you can't get through the hot air, here's the punch line: It's not Jub Jub's fault that he killed kids, it's the society's fault because we don't train people how to deal with success.  Sending a convicted killer to prison constitutes two wrongs because "what human wants another to be locked up".  You couldn't make it up.





As if that was not enough, he then proceeded to take his crusade to twitter where he was rebuked.

Prayers for jub jub, sympathy for the families in my opinion as painful as it is two wrongs don't make a right. Good luck brother
— Siya Slikour Metane (@Slikour) October 16, 2012

A quick search reveals that this guy is a renowned attention seeker and it all begins to makes sense.  He was invited in hope that he'll say something stupid and he didn't disappoint.  A few years ago this would have prompted outrage, but the lack of outrage may be the new outrage.

YFM #JubJubPrisonSongs fail

Source: news24.com

UPDATE: 16/10/2012 17:07

Yfm has since deleted the tweet presumably owing to the weight of twitter criticism.  How very brave?

Barely a few minutes after the Jub Jub verdict handed down, Yfm took to twitter to urge their listeners to suggest songs to be dedicated to him.

See, Yfm is really edgy and rebellious, not even the murder of four kids can escape their satirical lens.  The are really anti-establishment and whoever said South Africans are too polite has never had the privilege to listen to this esteemed station.

Huffington Post pervy Paris Jackson tweet

Paris Jackson does NOT look 14 in this photo huff.to/TbUHqD
— Huffington Post (@HuffingtonPost) October 14, 2012

I can't help but think that a lot of media outlet have set their alarms for Michael Jackson's daughter, Paris 18th birthday when it will be acceptable to publish her near naked picture (if she doesn't tweet them herself).

But the Huffington Post seems to be more eager than the rest of the pack.  They've been tweeting a link to her picture the whole weekend with the same refrain: "she does NOT look 14".

To which I say "you just wish she was 4 years older".

Was Unathi dismissed or suspended, City Press?

City Press either don't think that the people who read the Entertainment section of their website can distinguish between the words "dismissed" and "suspended" or they just don't care.  According to my dictionary:

Dismiss -

1. Order or allow to leave; send away
2. Discharge from employment or office.

Suspend -

1. Temporarily prevent from continuing or being in force or effect

Why would they have a headline "Unathi dismissed" - which implies that she has been discharged from her duties - and go on to say she has been suspended later on in the same article?  It maybe the work of the subs to make sure the headline and the sub headline are in agreement, but a quick search in their website reveals that the journalist has a history of non stories so it may be par for the course.

Maybe I'm just being a prude and the target market doesn't mind being mislead but in the increasingly squeezed newspaper market that's infested with free writers and where celebrities break their own stories, you'd think paid writers would do better than this.

TMZ and some rapper wearing 3 chainz not 2

2 Chainz... or is it 3 CHAINZ!?! - Watch More Celebrity Videos or Subscribe

With the plethora of celebrities and people who have sex on camera and try to attain fame at the back of coming and leaving LAX, you'd think TMZ will be inundated with material to put up to their repugnant website.  But they reached a new low a few weeks ago when some hip hop person by the name 2 Chainz was out doing whatever someone called 2 Chainz would get up to and one thing seemed out of place.

Hey TMZ, let us know how many chainz he's wearing today.  We're really dying to know.

Joe Biden, The Daily Mail and bullying

Last night US Vice President Joe Biden locked horns with Mitt Romney's running mate on the Republican Party ticket, Paul Ryan, in a debate.  And they josled around and tried to outwit each other, you know, as a debate is supposed to unfold.  But the right wing media has gone all out to accuse Biden of being "disrespectful".

Funnily enough, these purveyors of politeness saw nothing wrong with Mitt Romney implying that President Obama was lying and likening him to his sons last week.  But one of their allies went a step further: they accused Biden of bullying.  That's a bit rich, coming from The Daily Mail.  Maybe we should remind them of all those TV starlets who have to endure their taunts on the daily basis because they've gained weight or they had the temerity to go to the shops without putting on make up.

Huge fail, Daily Mail.

The Star and Zuma penis drawing

twitter.com/faranaaz

When Jacob Zuma decided to take a break from impersonating a president and talk about a subject that's very close to his heart, sex, to a group of unfortunate school kids yesterday, nobody could have forseen the hilarity that was to grace front page of The Star today.

The nice boys and girls at The Star thought they'll let this picture adorn the their front page and accompany their leading story, which may have been a commentary to this painting.  It's not really a fail if they chose this picture deliberately but if it was an oversight, then it's a huge own goal.  It's chucklesome to the rest of us.

People will speculate as to Mr Zumas's suitability to dish out sex advice given his track record.  All I know is should the youth choose to take it, shower manufacturers will suddenly find themselves having a lot of demand for their products.

Media Pass: Gawker on Hulk Hogan sex tape

After months of speculation, Gawker has finaly done the right thing and put a lot of people out of their misery and released an edited version of the Hulk Hogan sex tape along with a play by play transcript of the event.  Understandably, Hulk is threatening to sue them and there has been no certainty as to the identity of the woman, until now.

Hogan appeared on The Howard Stern Show this morning and revealed that his co-star is indeed his friend Bubba The Love Sponge's ex-wife, Heather.  Apparently, Bubba and his wife were on Hulk's case for two years until he finaly caved in.  "Heather was relentless", Hulk told Stern.

I've always known that I'm friends with the wrong kind of people.  Nobody has ever asked me bang their wife, let alone a supermodel type like Heather.  So let this be know, friends, I'm totally available for something like this.  Thank you Gawker, your excellent work is duly noted.

Media Fail: Jennifer Livingston

Jennifer Livingston, a fat TV anchor woman based somewhere in rural America received an e-mail from an idiotic viewer who objected to her weight and feigned disappointment in her and blamed her for being a bad role model to young girls.  Everyone who is in the public eye will get a certain amount of criticism directed at them; I do and I'm at the very low level of what you'd call media.

TV is a visual medium and people are always going to pick on you if you are not thin and sport a Hollywood smile, you'll get negative feedback.  But to claim that you're being bullied and jump on the anti-bullying month (or whatever it's called) is just downright disingenuous.  If Ms Livingston had not read the e-mail on air, only she would know about it.  But she knew exactly what she was doing.  She wanted to get her large frame on every TV screen and command column inches with the bleeding hearts opining on how awful the e-mail sender is.

The media became it's own biggest audience again, as they always tend to be.  In unison, they all claimed that she's a victim but nobody called her out when the man who sent the e-mail was tracked down and hounded by news outlets and had cameras shoved into his face.

So Jennifer, you're fat, you're on TV, you decided to read the e-mail on air.  You were not bullied and no amount of photo shoots and in talk show couches is going to change that.  All the people who are suddenly interested in you are just taking advantage of a viral video not your bravery.

While the media eats itself to extinction, it might be a good idea for Ms Livingston to step away from the fridge if she's to reap the full benefits of her 15 minutes.

T-bo Touch, tripe and the building

Pic: thenewage.co.za

Online racist hatemongers took time off their ANC hating afternoons yesterday to join in the mocking of a story that was off the Sunday Sun about American wannabe T-bo Touch was fined $75 for cooking tripe and stinking up a block of flat in New York City.  Presumably he's there to top up his dodgy American accent that, as you can hear in the clip below, is all over the place.




The elephant in the room, of course, is nobody seems to be asking how the newspaper found out about his misfortune.  None of the websites that followed up seem to have enquired either;  they were just too happy to harvest the clicks they got as a result of copying and pasting the Sunday Sun story.  It's not as if the NYC police are going to call a tabloid in South Africa and tell them that some guy is cooking something that smells very bad so one can only surmise that either he or someone in his camp called the newspaper, in which case it's not really news.

You can't fine me for being Proudly South African I think I should bringmy attorney overs!!! It's not about R650 it's about Patriotism
— Touch (@iamtbotouch) October 8, 2012

But as your boy puts it, it's all about patriotism.  The accent may elude him but he seems to have taken to their jingoism like a duck to water.

Here's a promo idea for his abysmal radio show: "your boy's in the building, and the odour preceds him."

Khaya Mthethwa against booing Melissa

Black South Africans risked bankruptcy by running huge phone bills voting for Khaya Mthethwa and made him the first black winner of Idols SA.  During the final results episodes he and fellow finalist Melissa Allison perfomed and Allison was booed, presumably by Khaya's fans.

News24 must have assumed that Khaya either put them up to it or he approved of the booing, judging by this story.  Yes.  They thought it warranted not a line in his overall feel good story but it's own story that he's not okay Who would have thunk it, a nice Christian boy Khaya does not approve of people booing his competitors?  I think it would have been a story if he had said he was all for it.

Here's a lead for a story news24, ask the leaders of the G8 nations where they stand on poverty.  I hear they have very left field views on the subject.

This woman has a bush down below

And she wants you to know about it.  For no reason in particular as far as I can discern, apart from the need to fill the webpage with something that would "spark a debate" and making the author feel somehow important and remind her readers that she has a nice rack (and it is) by shoving her chest onto the camera lens.

Upon further reading it transpires that the writer is the Editor of something called Women24 (it's for women geddit) which means she would have been responsible for either compiling or okaying the slideshow that's inspired her to disclose the hairy state of her beaver.  Essentially, the whole thrust of this section of News24 is a group of bra burners get together, be non-conformist and badly-behaved (if the editor's t-shirt is anything to on) and have somehow deluded themselves into believing that they represent women's matters, they matter and if they shout loud enough, people will listen.

Sadly, this couldn't be further from the truth.  It might as well be in the running to be Nuts magazine's female cousin.  There's no depth, no imagination; there's just knee jerk reaction commentary on pop culture all laced with profanity.  And I'm okay with ladies discussing their "pink bits", advising each other on the techniques and the frequency with which blow jobs should be given (as often as is humanly possible please), perving on muscular celebrities and dropping f-bombs all over the place, but to present it under the banner of "women" is a bit of a stretch.

I've seen this done better elsewhere: reporting a "story" and let your panel of columnists tackle it with their opinions, with varying degrees of self-referentialism, a mere hours afterwards.  Even on that front this section doesn't live up to expectations.  We live in an unequal society and it's while it's titillating to read white middle class women advising each other on what lube to use next time they try anal sex, the vast majority of women (remember them) who would want to talk to somebody about women matters don't even have access to the internet.

 I sincerely hope they wanted to brand it girlsgonewild24.com and the suits stepped just before they purchased the domain name and stopped them in an effort to keep their advertisers.

CNBC Asks Kim Kardashian for Her Take On The Economy

I think the title says it all really.  CNBC wanted the renowned academic that is Kim Kardashian share her pearls of wisdom with their viewers.  And she didn't disappoint.

Major #mediafail

Justin Harrison vs Woolworths media fail

South Africa is a country that's obsessed with race.  So if I were a shady "internet entrepreneur" the nature of whose services are not exactly clear a full 10 minutes after reading my website but claims to be an expert who wants to be paid for them anyway , who doesn't feature in first four pages of the google search results of his own name, is gaming his social networking credentials and has to resort badgering local technologically ignorant brands for freebies, I'd jump at an opportunity to stir up a racial tensions in an effort to raise my profile and drive traffic to my website.  That's what Justin Harrison has done.

It looks like he spent the whole weekend pestering white people into boycotting Woolworths for what he considers to be a racist employment policy.  It looks like it finally paid off as word hit the galvanised masses on twitter on Tuesday.  And the "news" gave it legs soon afterwards (Hey news people, what happens twitter is not news.)  As expected Woolworths unleashed their PR machince to the situation and Mr Harrison was roundly mocked on twitter as neatly distilled in this piece (Hey Verashni, it's the 21st century, you can embed tweets to blogs now).

It's no coincidence that he doesn't want to do any interviews.  Why would he?  He got what he wanted: traffic to his crappy website (Hey Justin, I don't know what you're selling but if you're going to get people to part with money for it, you'll do well to hire a writer and an SEO practitioner.  They're very cheap in Kolkata, ask the people who sold you twitter followers, they should know).

Well done media, you've given a delusional nutcase attention and the traffic he so craved and he's now laughing all the way to the top of the top of the google search results.  And for what, so you could sell a few newspapers and airtime spots?  What are you going to do tomorrow?

Talk Radio 702 Twitter account operator fail

Radio 702 would like us to believe that they are a world class radio station.  The truth is they're just a radio arm of a corporation and their purpose is to sell advertising and they hire people to talk between these adverts.  And they should refrain from saying anything contentious, lest they cause advertises trepidation.  They are so great they have a twitter operator who doesn't know the difference between "policy" and "police."

I'm well aware that I'm nitpicking and Sipho from Soweto who's going to call in and be allowed on the air to drone on and on between the adverts, even if he doesn't confine his contribution to the topic, doesn't mind and understands it's a mistake, but shouldn't we expect better from a broadcasting company?

Lead SA you say?  With the grammar like that, it's a no thanks from me.

Media Pass: Greg Marinovich

Source: dailymaverick.co.za

Following the gunning of 34 miners at the hands of the SAPS at Marikana mine a few weeks ago, you'd have been forgiver for thinking that a memo was issued urging all reporters to only dissect and analyse the shooting that was captured in the video that has shocked the world.

As you can see there were no more than a dozen miners in that video.  You'd have expected journalists to find out how the others were killed.  Instead, we got reactions from Politicians and pundits.  That was until Friday when Greg Marinovich's prolific piece journalism was published in The Daily Maverick website.  In it he details his two week investigation, re-traced the steps the police would have taken on that fateful afternoon and interviewed witnesses.

He concludes that a lot of those shot we murdered by the police in cold blood.  Of course an enquiry in is underway but if I were a betting man, I'd say nobody will be held to account.  It will be concluded that the Police shot the miners because they were defending themselves and lessons will be learned and let's move on please.

I digress.  It was very brave of The Daily Maverick to be the lone dissenting voice and publish his piece when it would have been easier to hide behind the safety in numbers.  I'm also encouraged to learn that their paid version iMaverick is doing well, which is no mean feat in the South African digital space.  This can only mean they are not going away anytime soon.

And that's just as well.

Sports journalists fail to condemn Pistorius' behaviour

There's no denying that Oscar Pistorius is an amazing sportsman and deserves all the accolades and the adulation he gets.  I can't even begin to imagine what life would be like if I didn't have my limbs.  Yet he and his fellow Olympians are showing us that disabled people can put their bodies through the physical strain and the discipline that is required - just as their able bodied colleagues did a few weeks ago - to produce sporting spectacle that is currently gracing the East End of London.

Having said that, his behaviour in the immediate aftermath of losing the 200m men's race to Brazil's Alan Oliveira was shameful to say the least.  Maybe the guy's legs were longer than he felt appropriate and he should voice his displeasure but that was hardly the place to do it.  My suspicions that even he knew that were confirmed this morning when he issued an apology for the timing of his outburst.  But what is shocking is the sheer lack of condemnation for his antics.  I don't watch TV, listen to the radio or read tree murdering newspapers on magazines but I read newspapers online and none of them have criticised him.  I follow a couple of sports reporters on twitter, some of whom are currently covering the Paralympics in London, and I have yet to hear a dissenting word about Pistorius.  The only mildly critical tweet that came into my timeline was from a journalist bemoaning being snubbed for an interview:

Oscar Pistorius snubs both SABC & Supersport @ the stadium last night but speaks to international media.So much for a Proudly South African!
— Velile Mbuli (@Veli_Mbuli) September 3, 2012

I wonder why that is Veli.  Maybe he wanted to deal with real journalists first and maybe talk to brown nosers afterwards, if he feels like it.  He can afford to do this safe in the knowledge that he can do no wrong in your eyes.  That's my understanding of that Proudly South African nonsense.

If he was an able bodied athlete, there'd be no end of people lining up to (excuse the pun) stick the boot in.  The only reason he's treated with kid's gloves by the media is because he's disabled.  This goes against the doctrine that disabled people should be treated the same way as everyone else.  This, unfortunately, involves rebuking them when they do wrong.  Pretending otherwise is to do everyone a disservice and very patronising.

Even Oscar would agree with that.  I wouldn't hold my breath for it, because nobody will put it to him.

UPDATE:  05/09/2012:  If you interested in the science of the technology involved, Dr Ross Tucker elaborates here

The Daily Mail don't know what Lewis Hamilton's brother looks like

The Daily Mail has been on Lewis Hamilton's case since he burst into the F1 scene.  If they not bemoaning his Monaco residency that deprives the schooling system he benefited from of millions of pounds in tax it's they are chasing bints he's partying with for a scoop and ultimately try to attribute his off track life to his poor track perfomance.  This is despite the fact that his teammate, Jenson Button, also has Monaco as his primary residence for tax purposes yet he never gets criticised.



Lewis Hamilton and brother Nicolas

 It's a shame they don't invest the same amount of vigour and anthusiasm in the accuracy of their reporting.  They published the above picture to go with this story and claimed the man next to his girlfriend, Nicole Shrezinger, was his brother, Nicolas.  His brother is a prominent racing driver himself and I'd imagine his picture is a couple of mouse clicks away.  The man is Lupe Fiasco, an American rapper who is Lewis' friend.

I know, Daily Mail, black people look the same.  How were you to know?  In the future, ask the work experience kids who are working for you for free until they go back to school.  They listen to "black music".