The Times and Harry The Owl

[vivariumvivariumsvivaria]

Oh, well, this is interesting

twitter.com/WeAreFairCop/status/1292160071208706054

And it may be - possibly?? - that the person at Hachette responsible for this was one of those disgruntled employees who protested Hachette's decision to support JK Rowling originally, ie that the right hand did not know what the left hand was doing.

But I suspect this hypocrisy goes right to the top. I find it unlikely that such a decision would have been made without knowledge at the highest levels given the political and commercial sensitivity involved.

We shall see - in how Hachette responds.

If it immediately apologises and sacks those responsible, maybe this was the action of a rogue employee.

If not, then Hachette have no moral compass and are not fit to publish a law review, or frankly, anything else.

This is disgraceful.

This is appalling. An attempt to conceal and distort a legal ruling which will (assuming the exam boards are not equally insane) disadvantage those A level students and teachers who read it and use it as an example in their exams. A publisher deliberately feeding A level students lies because it doesn't like the truth. WTF?

It's quite a complicated story, written pretty straight so quite hard to get the gist of it. But yes why were mermaids asked, and why was their feedback so influential on what's meant to be just a factual representation of a law case? WTF with trigger warnings and Safe spaces needed for law students 🙄

Hachette is a huge publisher (I used to work for them) that includes many imprints and divisions, that have been made up of several separate smaller companies, all with their own MDs who then report upwards.. Hodder Education is just one, and are one of the main textbook publishers in the UK. I doubt very much this goes right to the top of Hachette or that this is 'hypocrisy' in the way being suggested above.

I suspect this will be zealous overreach on the part of one particular editor/publishing team that has been allowed to get completely out of control.

I'll be interested to see what the top brass at Hachette has to say. The CEO will not be best pleased, I imagine.

I'm glad you're all here to interpret, it was a bit early for me to understand it!

knowing a few uber-woke young editors in publishing, im not surprised.

It's incredibly poorly written for what is actually an extremely important story.

Educational publishers should not be editing or censoring legal rulings to create what some of their editors personally deem a 'safe space' for legal students or deciding what information they are to be allowed to have. Would they do this for any other topic? I'm not surprised the author resigned in disgust.

I agree with PP that this really is disturbing. What I would like to know is how normal it is. Does this publisher (or any other) normally seek to edit law reports in order to reflect particular ideological Positions? Do they normally seek help from outside lobby groups when doing that?

Same here mcduffy, I read the first few paragraphs at midnight and just thought "huh?" It does need a bit of explaining.

Trigger warnings on legal rulings??
What other legal rulings might attract trigger warnings one wonders?

We need to get away from trigger warnings all the time. Anyone studying law needs to be able to cope with reading a range of cases. I think trigger warnings only make sense in situations like on Mumsnet where you are just randomly clicking on stuff and can find yourself reading something disturbing without warning.

If the intent of a textbook is to show contrasting examples of a situation- a time when very similar situations were handled in different ways, say- then asking a group for an example of that isn't unreasonable. Changing the first example however... not reasonable.

That article is unusually poorly written by Times standards. They could have made the point much more clearly.

@picklemewalnuts

If the intent of a textbook is to show contrasting examples of a situation- a time when very similar situations were handled in different ways, say- then asking a group for an example of that isn't unreasonable. Changing the first example however... not reasonable.

You would surely ask lawyers for that kind of input?

I am not finding it underwhelming. It’s utterly terrifying that the deluded leaders of a lobby group have this much influence, which includes being consulted on what material is taught to law students and being invited to amend the findings of a high court ruling.

I agree with PP that this really is disturbing. What I would like to know is how normal it is. Does this publisher (or any other) normally seek to edit law reports in order to reflect particular ideological Positions? Do they normally seek help from outside lobby groups when doing that?

I can see that they may seek "comment" on legal rulings to run alongside the ruling, but no, I wouldn't think editing them is normal at all. (And if they did seek comment, then why that of a known ideological lobby group?) But now, who knows? The editor's comment about it being "offensive": says it all really, also the fact he seems to have removed large chunks of the ruling he didn't like. He took an ideological stand. As above, I wouldn't be at all surprised if he wasn't one of those who signed the letter last time.

Does anyone think it would be worth sending this to the Minister for Education? I’m not sure if it’s the right channel?

Ian Yule resigned as Chairman of the A level board in response to his accurate summary of Judge Knowles' ruling being submitted to Mermaids. His scathing words are a good summary of the profound dysfunction going on here:

This article contained little or no commentary by me, and no comments whatsoever on the issue of transgenderism,” he said. “My article did not express my own thoughts or beliefs but was a straightforward and accurate report of a High Court judgment.” He added: “If the judgment of a respected High Court judge is likely to upset such students and their teachers, they have no business studying or teaching this subject. ”In its justification for the intervention, a Hodder editor told him: “The claimant’s [Harry Miller’s] views and the judge’s [Mr Justice Julian Knowles’s] comments about transgender issues would be offensive to most of our readers and our staff

I only understood that after relaying it to DH, during which I rearranged the order of many paragraphs

Judge's opinion = biased, albeit within the confines of the law
Reporting of judge's opinion = tried to be accurate and unbiased
This reportage (being an unbiased report of a biased opinion) was itself thought of as biased
Lobby group asked to unbias it by providing 'balance'
Publishers defend their attempts at unbias/balancing
Author of article gets justifiably cross at all of this and resigns from chairman post
General public puts head in hands (or like )

I think A level students, ironically, would best best advised to go look at the court report itself (and try not to faint)

In its justification for the intervention, a Hodder editor told him: “The claimant’s [Harry Miller’s] views and the judge’s [Mr Justice Julian Knowles’s] comments about transgender issues would be offensive to most of our readers and our staff.”

This summarises the problem. Views within the publishing industry have become so deeply skewed that they have wholly lost sight of what the general public/adult readers believe. The A-Level age group presumably come under the same reader cohort as young adult readers. And novels for that group have all been censored by “sensitivity readers” for years.

Bad enough to censor fiction so that young readers are unable to get a balanced and realistic view of the world. It is now revealed that this has been extended to non-fiction, and that is terrifying.

@AnyOldPrion

In its justification for the intervention, a Hodder editor told him: “The claimant’s [Harry Miller’s] views and the judge’s [Mr Justice Julian Knowles’s] comments about transgender issues would be offensive to most of our readers and our staff.”

This summarises the problem. Views within the publishing industry have become so deeply skewed that they have wholly lost sight of what the general public/adult readers believe. The A-Level age group presumably come under the same reader cohort as young adult readers. And novels for that group have all been censored by “sensitivity readers” for years.

Bad enough to censor fiction so that young readers are unable to get a balanced and realistic view of the world. It is now revealed that this has been extended to non-fiction, and that is terrifying.

Plenty of A level students are critical of gender identity theory also. The idea that all young people uncritically accept it is simply wrong

Also, given that the BBC (transactivism central) have removed Mermaids from their site, but have not made public the (presumed) scandal that caused them to do so is equally concerning. If there’s a problem with Mermaids’ advice, then it needs to be acknowledged so that other companies stop using them as a supposed “safe reference”.

Plenty of A level students are critical of gender identity theory also. The idea that all young people uncritically accept it is simply wrong

Yes, sorry, I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. The main thrust was that Hodder’s view is now so out of step with the real world that they believe they’re doing right, when actually they’re terrifyingly brainwashed.

I'm picturing a future where physics textbooks are given to Flat Earthers to 'correct' and evolution edited by the Jesuits. I'm pretty sure they find standard works offensive.

What else has been censored by Mermaids? Who else do they give "feedback" to? Looking forward to the expose by the BBC which triggered their distrust.