A media pile on may well have been consequential in the tragic death of Professor Jason Arday.
The pile on came from the right, The Times, Telegraph and Spectator. By contrast the Daily Mirror and indeed the BBC News website refrained from anything more than factual reporting.
The Guardian fell somewhere in between. It didn’t have anything near as much coverage as the right-wing media, but it did have both reporting and some commentary. Its coverage after Professor Arday’s death, for example of the 17th August Trafalgar Square rally, can’t be faulted. Before then there are certainly questions to be asked and the paper carried readers responses
It also carried a piece by Hugh Muir which I think rightly sought to underline that if there were issues it was not with individual journalists but with the Editorial policy. He didn’t find issue with the latter.
I did and below is an unpublished Fletter. No complaints about it not being published but while you would not expect The Guardian to be Socialist Worker or the Morning Star I do think the paper’s coverage was not where most of its readers were. Many no doubt were in Trafalgar Square last Monday or supportive of those who were.
Hugh Muir (19.8)suggests that there was both a right-wing backlash and legitimate journalism at play in the Guardian’s coverage of the late Professor Jason Arday. His idiosyncrasies no doubt warranted investigation. However reviewing the Guardian’s coverage I find only passing mention that the recent furore was promoted by self styled race realist Nathan Cofnas. There does not seem to have been sustained consideration of what Cofnas was up to and why, or why the right-wing media were so keen to publicise his allegations. This should not have been a on the one hand and on the other hand matter. The Guardian should have taken a side, albeit of course critically so.
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