This NOTW supplement cover will never see the light of day so I thought I’d share it here. I suppose it is now something of a rarity since the paper has closed.
There were fears earlier this year that Thatcher would go the same Saturday night as a big UK sports celeb. Of course its standard procedure for papers to have pre-made obits for major public figures.
A London GAA team have turned Ireland’s economic gloom into a recession success story as they harness the football skills of newly-arrived immigrants. » My piece on Yahoo! Eurosport
Some pictures and video I took from the last day of the News of the World are included in this Yahoo! News article.
Some day all newspaper offices might look like this:
Interview with me about breaking the Johann Hari story over on Joe.ie
Johann claims he just takes quotes from the subject’s own writings, but we’ve already established here and here that he is also taking other people’s interviews and passing them off as his own.
This is probably the last blog post I’ll do on this so I’d ask that you take a good look and make up your mind. I contacted the original interviewer Matthew Todd from Attitude magazine this morning and he confirmed that he had interviewed Gareth Thomas first and set Johann up with this interview. In return, Hari nicked some of his quotes.
Hari, Independent - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/gareth-thomas-on-the-joy-of-coming-out-1883659.html
For the first 35 years of his life, Thomas tried to bury his sexuality. He confides: “I used to visualise it as a little ball. I know it’s crazy, but I’d imagine this little ball in my stomach and I’d have an encounter with a man and the ball would just be there. Then from that day to the next encounter, be it one month, two months, three months, all I could see was this gold liquid dripping out of the ball. That was the real me seeping out … I didn’t want it to be there. I’d walk along cliffs and think it would be much easier if I just fell off.”
I can’t find the original Attitude interview online but luckily Walesonline reprinted it on January 18th and properly cited it-
He said: “I tried to bottle it up, but I could feel it, it was there in my stomach.
“I know this sounds crazy but this shows how much stress I was under, I used to visualise it as a little ball.
“I’d imagine this ball in my stomach and I’d have an encounter with a man and the ball would just be there.
“Then from that day until the next encounter, be it one month, two months, three months, all I could see was this gold liquid dripping out of the ball.
“That was the real me seeping out. My mind would tell me when there was no more to seep out and unfortunately, I would have to cheat on the person I loved the most. I will feel terrible about that until the day I die.”
This was sent to me by someone who wishes to remain anonymous but has been aware of Hari’s practice for a while. They explain;
My feeling is that this doesn’t fit with Hari’s other explanation - this is not something Thomas has said in his own writing. It is a rather vulnerable, beautiful quote which another journalist got out of him by gaining his trust. Hari has made it look like he said it directly to him. By saying it doesn’t matter if you quote a previous text, he’s missing the concept that subtle new nuances will always come out in a new conversation and you can always take out the “uhhs and umms”. I’m sure Thomas wouldn’t dream of complaining because he seems like any easy going guy and it’s a well-meaning piece but that’s not the point either. Getting good quotes out of an interviewee should be part of an interviewer’s skill.
The Indy claim they’ve never had any complaints, we know this is untrue, even Private Eye have picked up on his hackery.
Apparently I have started a ‘shitstorm’, according to some of my peers. I’m quite busy at work today but while the debate rages over whether Hari’s defence is acceptable or not I’d really like people to jump in and check his quotes themselves.
I like this one from ‘The Bravest Woman in Afghanistan: An Interview With Malalai Joya.
I ask if she was frightened, and she shakes her head. “I am never frightened when I tell the truth.” She is speaking fast now: “I am truly honoured to have been vilified and threatened by the savage men who condemned our country to such misery. I feel proud that even though I have no private army, no money, and no world powers behind me, these brutal despots are afraid of me and scheme to eliminate me.”
http://www.johannhari.com/2009/07/29/the-bravest-woman-in-afghanistan-an-interview-with-malalai-joya
Seems to come from the press blurb for her book;
I am truly honoured to have been vilified and threatened by the savage men who have condemned our country to such misery. I feel proud that even though I have no private army, no money and no world powers behind me, these brutal despots are afraid of me and scheme to eliminate me. But it is not really me these men fear - they fear the wrath of our people who know the crimes they have committed. They know they cannot evade justice indefinitely, and the Afghan people have already decided the verdict.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Raising-My-Voice-Extraordinary-Afghan/dp/product-description/184604149X
Thanks for joining the game Jane. If you find some nicked quotes tweet me and I’ll start archiving them all here.
Orwell Prize winning hack Johann Hari has some explaining to do. After reading a recent blog post detailing how he seems to have plagiarised large parts of his interview with Antonio Negri I thought I’d have a closer look at his work.
As a test I picked a recent interview of Hari’s at random and went through his quotes, doing a basic check for plagiarism. The results are pretty damning.
My piece from Look Left issue six.
For two decades British anti-fascists fought a cold blooded battle for control of the streets against burgeoning far-right movements, Brian Whelan meets the authors of a controversial new book by activists who were there on the frontlines.
[ Due to copyright claim book cover has been removed until resolution - to see the image check - http://www.freedompress.org.uk/news/publishing/beating-the-fascists-2/ ]
Just last year the BNP put forward 338 candidates for the UK parliamentary election, the biggest fielding by the far right the country had ever seen, topping the National Front’s 303 candidates in 1979.
The party gambled and lost, failing to win any seats and losing their 12 seats on Barking Council. The British left declared the BNP to have been finally defeated, decimated and no longer a threat.
However, veteran members of Anti-Fascist Action (AFA) have a different analysis, they point out that the BNP have more than tripled their vote and say things are going to get a lot worse.
This is my piece from Sunday World on undercover cop Mark Stone.
Selection of my tabloid bylines from 2008 - 2010, I used to write a lot about the far right, plenty more where these came from.
Still knocking them out for Ireland’s biggest selling Sunday paper.
I have an editor’s blog over on Yahoo! Ireland now for comment and debate around the week’s events.
While former editor of the News of the World, Andy Coulson, faces mounting accusations over his alleged knowledge of reporters practising ‘dark arts’, we take a look at the possibility that Irish reporters could just as easily have been listening to your voicemails.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/blogs/ireland/did-phone-hacking-ever-happen-in-ireland-its-nave-to-think-otherwise-p4.html
Was asked about this piece from 2008 recently so thought I would stick it up online, it even got a mention in the New York Times.
EXILED Palestinian militant, Jihad Jaara, who played a leading role in the siege at the Church of the Nativity in April 2002 and currently lives on Dublin’s Northside, has vowed to return to his home and family in Palestine.
(Above siege at church of the nativity, 2002)
In an exclusive interview Mr Jaara, now based near Howth, said that while the Irish people and the Government have been very welcoming, he feels like he is being held prisoner here.
“I have a wife and four children in Palestine,” said Mr Jaara. “My son was born the day I was sent to Ireland and I have never seen him.”
Major Lazer Soundsystem @ Notting Hill 2010
