hmmm what does one think of this article in the Times and this thread - coincidence, non or oui?

[BoysAreLikeDogs]

article

you decide

[AmpleBosom]

Just a little bit similar!

[SparklyGothKat]

the details are the same, have I been taken in by a jurno?

[WilfSell]

no idea, but find the article odious and have said on other thread.

[Quattrofangs]

I do think it would be kind of journalists who intend to publish MN comments, or use MN as a sounding board for their latest article, to say what they plan to do. To be honest and open. Otherwise, one feels a tiny bit used.

[Blu]

Can't journalists who write opinion columns based on things that happen in their lives discuss those things in other areas of thier lives?

There's no 'research', no quoting.

If I was a journalist, couldn't I ever write columns about things I have ranted on here about?

[DuelingFanjo]

blimey!

[ProfessorLaytonIsMyLoveSlave]

Blu, but she posted here looking for support and got it (see long thread of people agreeing with her) -- which suggests that on a straw poll basis "parents" tend to be perfectly reasonable.

Then she wrote an article asking whether "parents ever express gratitude or grace? Instead, their dissatisfaction fed by the family-feeding companies flogging them bigger people carriers, flashier prams, they lament only what they lack." -- i.e. suggesting that all modern parents are self-obsessed inconsiderate tossers.

This is at best a leeeeeeetle annoying.

(this in the assumption that JT didn't just plagiarise the OP)

[Quattrofangs]

You think, Blu? I think that MN was used in two ways here.

The first as a gauge, maybe, to see whether the subject would strike a chord.

The second was using MN to help develop the episode into an article. Not plagiarism and of course nor quoting, but still y'know unattributed assistance. It was Riven who used the word entitlement first, and entitlement is the theme of the article.

[Blu]

"i.e. suggesting that all modern parents are self-obsessed inconsiderate tossers.

This is at best a leeeeeeetle annoying." I agree with that. But on the other hand, it IS the feeling that is v often put forward on MN, re P&C parking, AND buggies on buses, as it happens.

But as for the rest, I think the word 'entitlement' is nothing short of inevitable and obligatory on a thread like this, it's hardly unusual in the context. Possibly slightly more common on a 4x4 thread...or is it...not sure...

I doubt very much that an experienced journalist needs to test spmething like this before a 'select' audience! Nor cares if it goes down contraversially!

Mn can get all uffy puffy and self-important, you know!

[ProfessorLaytonIsMyLoveSlave]

MN v often suggests that all parents are tossers?

And she can't even be arsed to do ten seconds' research into which buggies are actually ginormous and which are sold largely on the strength of their dinkiness, which implies a certain amount of just vomiting a stream of consciousness onto the page and thinking "that'll do".

We get uffy puffy and self important for free, after all. We expect higher standards from those who are paid to do it.

[Blu]

Prof - I don't feel wildly motivated to defend the article per se, and I am prepared to take your more knowledgabl word for it over the size of Qhinny Zapps , I am just a bit about any perceived credit that MN can take for the article, or that MN-ers should feel that their intellectual property has been looted.

120 posters (or thereabouts) liked the thread and sympathised with the OP, but now JT is under attack.

[Blu]

"MN v often suggests that all parents are tossers?" In the context of P&C parking, and buggies on buses, yes! i.e in the same context in which JT writes.

Though I think there would be an outcry at the idea that breastfeeding in church constitutes an inflated sense of entitlement.

[Blu]

Ok....I see TDW ALSO started the 'buggy' thread. So I am moving to Switzerland (neutral)

[BitOfFun]

Are we to think the journo had the experience of her parents being harrassed herself, or did she just crib it from here?

[Blu]

The Times writer and the OP are the same person.
No cribbing, or copying.

[ProfessorLaytonIsMyLoveSlave]

Very few people have suggested that MN intellectual property has been looted. And I do agree that it hasn't been, significantly (but there is the buggy thread with the toss-OP-into-crowded-forum-and-retire posting approach).

IMO Janice Turner is under attack largely because she wrote a lazy and unbalanced "all modern parents are shit, not like I was" article while still fuming from the incident involving her parents. The fact she's a Mumsnetter is seen as making that worse, admittedly, but I think because as a Mumsnetter she should know that it's just not true.

It's not a hanging offence, just a bit crap and unprofessional, just as it is crap and unprofessional when if I let stuff that happens at home affect my work performance too much.

It's been widely known for years that JT is a Mumsnetter -- she mentions it herself. When she writes articles that the majority here agree with she gets kudos on MN, with generally a little extra kudos for the frisson of knowing that it was written by One Of Us. Now she writes an article that is less popular and she gets brickbats, a few hurled with extra heft because she is One Of Us.
JT has written articles in which she's commented on bf in church herself 2003: "I've had my nips out for the lads in church" so I'm not sure why she's down on it now, unless it's a self-abasing "I, too, am a tosser" thing.

We are parents -- how do we suggest all parents are tossers? We suggest that parents who do X, Y and Z are tossers, frequently and with great enthusiasm, but tend not to make such sweeping generalisations. Or if we do, then we get jumped on in much the way that TDW/JT has been.

[stuffitllllama]

"which implies a certain amount of just vomiting a stream of consciousness onto the page and thinking "that'll do"".

seems to sum it up

[DuelingFanjo]

"It's been widely known for years that JT is a Mumsnetter" I'd never heard of her until last night.

Is it ok for me to think the only article I have ever read by her is a bit shit and to be surprised that she either plagarised another person or posts to create copy?

[DuelingFanjo]

anyway

it's not like she's not doen it before

[RockBird]

I've been here years and I had never heard of her till this morning so it's unfair to assume that everyone knows she's a journo. Not that I care because I wasn't on the other thread.

I just thought it was a mean minded, unfair and a bit crap article really. She knows from being here that there are a fair proportion of parents that don't act like that yet she still feels the need to tar everyone with the same brush because it sounds good. That's a bit shitty really.

Someone said on the other thread about the article that the people who left the note on the car did it because they are probably selfish shits, not because they're parents. Same probably goes for Riven's experiences. That's low down shitty behaviour and they probably would have said the same if they had a shopping trolley or a big box. I think homing in on mothers isn't helpful.

[juneybean]

I though TheDullWitch was a regular

[BiscuitFace]

i like the article. i also think folk are v. envious that someone can make a living writing the sort of stuff we all talk about on here.

if this turns into a dullwitch hunt it will be the last straw for me (like anyone cares!)

[ReneRusso]

I thought it was a thoroughly reasonable article, and I see no evidence that the writer has "used" mumsnet for her article. Something horrible happened and she was writing in response to that. The fact the she also raised it on mumsnet doesn't bother me.

[IneedacleanerIamalazyslattern]

If you read further down tha AIBU thread TheDullWitch did reply to this it is her post and column ans she has explained further.