The Great Pretenders: the Mainstream Media / Why the Blogosphere > “the Media”

Posted on May 25th, 2007 by Richard Catto 4,274 views

The Mail & Guardian and iAfrica.com published yesterday essentially the same story, in which they both discuss the blog of sa male prostitute, the recent cause of Patricia de Lille’s irate outburst against anonymous bloggers, but without actually saying that.

It’s dishonest. It’s disengenuous. It’s so totally totally fake, and I am weary of these "clever" manoeuvrings and word games that the mainstream media like to play.

So why do they do it? Why do they not report the story honestly and straight-forwardly?

Because according to the legal advice they received, that would leave them vulnerable to charges of helping the sa male prostitute blogger to spread his defamation. Exactly the same line that de Lille trotted out in her original complaint. And exactly the same advice which was contradicted yesterday by some other online legal expert, Reinhardt Buys.

But the mainstream media prefers to play it safe. They prefer to lay masking tape over the truth. They prefer to cloak reality in euphemisms and play their "air guitars of journalism".

They prefer to deceive their readers.

And that is why the Blogosphere is greater than the mainstream media.

We do not fear what you fear.

And that fearlessness enables us to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The Truth that you are too scared to tell.

And that scares the heck out of some, such as Patricia de Lille, who wants that we should FEAR.

We will not.

References:
iAfrica.com: Tell-all sex blog targets celebrities
mg.co.za: Tell-all sex blog targets SA celebrities
David Bullard: Name and shame offensive bloggers

Filed under air guitars of journalism, Blogosphere, blogs, David Bullard, iAfrica, Mail & Guardian, Patricia de Lille, sa male prostitute, Simon Grindrod | 11 Comments »