Media Requests

I am deeply unimpressed with the deletion of that thread. If MNHQ allows media requests, said journalists need to do their research. It would have taken that journalist five minutes to get a sense of the flavour of the boards here, and to reword her post in less reactionary terms, which would have got an entirely different response. And the responses were largely coloured by this journalist's unprofessional aggressiveness, rude (and, I believed, not allowed?) use of pms to harangue, and rudeness at people legitimately querying her sexist wording and the sexist assumptions of the 'story'.

In fact, she got a great, wryly comic, real 'story', which was considerably more interesting than the stupid, sexist-materialistic one she came looking for - which was more than she deserved. To then go whinging to MnHQ and Twitter about the 'abuse' she got suggests someone who isn't regularly challenged for the reactionary nonsense she writes in a publication which regularly hits new lows in its media depiction of women as vacuous 'celebs' shamed by cellulite/'flaunting their curves', vacuous recipients of 'push presents', or cartoonishly feckless, ASBO-bearing teenage mothers of 12 who somehow buy giant TVs and Caribbean cruises on benefits.

She is a public figure, not just another poster on Mn looking for advice or support, for all her doe-eyed, disingenuous pleading about being a 'fellow-mum'. Her article on 'exercise in pregnancy' was one of the more disturbing things I have read recently - woman-hating, body-fascist, basing female self-esteem on thinness, and full of contempt for the overweight. It is a kick in the teeth for all the values for which I thought Mn stood - tolerance, mutual support, inclusiveness, the challenging of limiting female stereotypes.

Is MNHQ really OK with appearing to validate the unprofessional and aggressive behaviour of an under-prepared tabloid journalist over the legitimate expression of their own members opinions on a frankly sexist 'story'????

If so, that is a sad look out.

As I understand it from the rather brusque messages MN posted before the thread was deleted, posters in Media Requests don't pay for the privilege of interacting with MNers, so there may be no opportunity to interact with them before they dive in - unless they post in a section other than Media Requests first and then their post gets moved.

I think a warning would be appropriate - the push present request was by no means the most dreadful that is currently active on Media Requests (I would suggest that honour goes to this horror). However, the OP merely exacerbated the situation by refusing to believe anyone wouldn't find it merely a bit of harmless fun that was in no way aimed at trying to put women down, in a publication famous for its sidebar of shame.

There then followed a series of accusations of 'personal attacks' (isn't that called getting negative feedback in a professional capacity? Most of the comments suggested that the 'newspaper' (I use the term loosely) that she writes for promotes hate and that she writes vile articles in keeping with its philosophy) and the fact the OP herself PMed and posted personal attacks appears to have gone unnoticed, despite being reported. On that basis, I would also like to see a separate category of account for journalists, which would disable the PM facility.

Overall I think MN should do more to set expectations for those using Media Requests. If you post a request we think is dreadful, we will say so. Unless MN feels that this constitutes a personal attack, in which case they need to rethink their entire Reviews part of the website as well.

I just don't understand the deletion of the "push present" thread. The OP was by far the rudest person on the thread. And it was very funny in the manner of threads of old that would twist and deviate and transform into random nuttiness.

I am holding my placard MNHQ

[Down With This Sort Of Thing]