Helen Lewis and Piers Morgan on The Media Show

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Helen Lewis and Piers Morgan are on Amol Rajan's Media Show on Radio 4 right now. They are talking about outrage. Helen Lewis did a good job explaining the 'RIP JKR' tweets:

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000nf3f

It will be repeated at 9.30 pm tonight too, as well as on Sounds

Thanks. Will listen out for that later, do like to hear what Helen Lewis has to say about things.

It will be repeated at half 9 this evening.

It was a blokey knockabout thing with Helen Lewis being able to make the occasional sensible point. I wonder whether this is true:

twitter.com/ryanjohnbutcher/status/1316404862654001152

[quote nauticant]It will be repeated at half 9 this evening.

It was a blokey knockabout thing with Helen Lewis being able to make the occasional sensible point. I wonder whether this is true:

twitter.com/ryanjohnbutcher/status/1316404862654001152[/quote]
Maybe they read it eventually but they hadn't read it when they started publishing inaccurate stories about it, as it hadn't been released.

That's my recollection too. To quote from another live thread: "I wouldn’t believe it if they told me it was Wednesday".

Ooo Helens rattled the posh boys at penis news.
They've gone full bitchy

She must have done something right.

Lol

She made some good points, and so did Piers Morgan I thought - but I was dismayed that she misrepresented what both JKR and Munroe Bergdorf have said. She said that MB had said something about most white people, but not what MB actually said, that all white people are racist, which was the reason for the cancelling in that case - and it was losing a job, rather than mass cancel culture-type cancelling. She also made out that the cancelling of JKR was about the book content, then mentioned JKR's previous issues because of her views on trans people - which is a misrepresentation, actually it was not views on trans people, but defending biological sex and women's rights.

So she was being a bit woolly which really didn't help explain those two particular cases at all. Though maybe she was trying not to offend (didn't work of course - getting piled on now).

But all in all I was glad to hear it discussed and I thought Amol Rajan managed it well.

She made the important point that cancel culture is about social media and comes both from the left and the right and used MB as an example of someone who had had cancellation pressure from both sides, from the right over the all white people are racist comments and from the left over the homophobic comments.

About JKR she knew that there would be no chance to get properly into the history of what's gone on so sensibly focused on the particular event that led to the #RIPJKRowling hashtag, which was highly relevant to The Media Show because it related to parts of the media being lazy, and parts not being bothered by the facts and preferring instead to ride a wave of sensationalism, if not actual falsehoods.

She's an effective advocate for free speech and women's rights because she explains things in a moderate way allowing people to see what's happening and to decide for themselves how unacceptable they find things.

MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT anyone who hasn't got to the end of Troubled Blood yet, scroll on, nothing to see here...

Also I should admit I haven't read the Pink News article linked in the Twitter thread above, because I'm not giving their shitty little website any more clicks. Ok, so there's a minor character who occasionally dons a woman's coat as a disguise, and may or may not have tried on the jewellery he took from his victims. This is a very minor detail in the book, but it's causing frothings of outrage because, presumably, it's causing the reader to make negative mental associations around men who may sometimes blur the gender lines for whatever reason. And it's a dog whistle, whatever. But if any of them had actually read to the end they would discover the mass-murderer is in fact a WOMAN, just an ordinary woman - surely that completely undermines all the anger? It's far, far more likely for a male serial killer to have a bit of a liking for trying on women's garb now and then, than it is for there to be a cold-blooded, mass-murdering woman - these are facts easily born out by statistics. So why isn't this character a massive, unfair slur on all women? BECAUSE ITS FUCKING FICTION.
Sorry for the long-winded, off topic post but I've been wanting to point this out for weeks (having read the book in about 2 sittings) but didn't want to ruin the story for anyone.

Benjamin Cohen admitted to not reading it in response to Nick Cohen's article calling out the smearing of JK Rowling.
They just make stuff up as they go along, don't they?

@KatVonlabonk

Ooo Helens rattled the posh boys at penis news. They've gone full bitchy

She must have done something right.

Lol

Was waiting to see how long before 'vile' would be deployed and bingo!

It's pretty funny how successful, talented women really make men mad, isn't it.

twitter.com/benjamincohen/status/1316415288976572416?s=19

There are some fun comments there, for example:

twitter.com/urcrazytoo/status/1316465693236301824

nauticant as I said I thought she made good points - just when I was listening I was frustrated she described certain things inaccurately which is kind of part of the problem. But she was thinking on her feet.

I also noticed that Amol tried to get them to unpick what had happened with JKR fully, and they skirted around looking at that head-on. Probably wise, just dismaying.

Offtothedogs
My sentiments exactly. I got to the end of the book and was amazed that anyone could find a transphobic sentence in the whole thing.

It was however a magnificent read with so many powerful yet nuanced issues touched on. A real tour de force that (unlike most books of the genre) I will read again for sheer pleasure.

I think we agree LadySeaThing. Helen Lewis recognised the complexities of the JKR story vs the limitations of the format of the programme and took shortcuts. As a result, she avoided doing a brain dump of the JKR story in a hurry that wouldn't have been clear and would have baffled most of the audience of the programme. Instead she focused on things like commenting pointedly about Pink News and now they're having a major tantrum on twitter with most people responding that they agree with Lewis, ie the responses in the link in the post by PearPickingPorky. They're a tonic.

Helen Lewis commented:

twitter.com/helenlewis/status/1316454452191264770

Maybe they read it eventually but they hadn't read it when they started publishing inaccurate stories about it, as it hadn't been released.

If they read it, and didn't subsequently publish a retraction of what they published before it was released, then they are deliberately promulgating a false version of what it's about in order to smear JRK.

Not a good look if you want to persuade people you really are the "news" source you claim to be, rather than someone's somewhat ranty blog site that publishes completely made up shite.

[quote nauticant]There are some fun comments there, for example:

twitter.com/urcrazytoo/status/1316465693236301824[/quote]
'The sorting twats' who decide which women to put in Slytherin was one of my faves.

Piers on Talk Radio talking about cancel culture and JK Rowling (he slags off radical feminism a little too, but it sounds like he's really talking about liberal feminism).

God help me, I'm almost tempted to buy his book