The Shock Doctrine

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Kevin Myers (inset) whose article in the Sunday Times led to his sacking yesterday

Further to the sacking of Kevin Myers from the Sunday Times…

…It has been asked, quite reasonably, why on earth none of the editors saw a problem before publishing the piece.

The answer is that they’ve never seen a problem with his work before or, if they did, thought the potential eyeball attention outweighed the risk. Major newspapers have been publishing Myers for years, and he has always said the same kinds of things….
…We live in an age in which there is a great deal of moral panic about online abuse. It isn’t moral panic because there is no such abuse, but because the focus on social media is a type of displacement and scapegoating.

National newspapers have been commodifying racist, sexist and homophobic spite and bullying for years. They have created a decrepit caste of ghastly celebrities, whose fame is built entirely on who they victimise for a living.

And as we are learning, the broadsheets are often no better than the tabloids—indeed, by offering a patina of legitimacy to boorish and self-serving sadists, they may be even worse.

Yet the newspapers and news broadcasters, globally, are in decline. Audiences are falling, revenues are falling and, crucially, trust in journalists and outlets— even the broadsheets—has plummeted. The age of the Internet, signalling the decline of six hundred years of print culture, has also ended the ideological monopolies of print empires.

As the British press discovered to its cost at the last election, this process is much more accelerated here than elsewhere. The fact that even the ‘serious’ press makes much of its coin out of such mediocre malice, is one reason why.

Kevin Myers was the inevitable result of a press culture that trades on shock (Richard Seymour, Prospect)

Earlier: ‘The Iterations of Sexism/Racism’

Yesterday: Kevin’s Gate

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13 thoughts on “The Shock Doctrine

  1. shitferbrains

    “To be absolutely clear. I do not think that Simon Weston’s injuries deserve ridicule. I emphatically do not think that people who advocate for the West Bank settlers should have their throats cut. I certainly didn’t mention or even consider the ethnicity of the individual in question, and the attempts to imply that this was a factor in the original statement are invidious and dishonest. I at no point sought a public audience for these comments, and never sought to solicit anyone’s anguish. I am, of course, very sorry to anyone who was hurt.”

    Seymours apology for mocking Simon Weston and suggesting a Jewish journalist should have his throat cut.

  2. Kenny U-Vox Plank

    It’s also the culture of the Sunday Independent: O’Hanlon, Harris, Kelly, etc., etc.

  3. bisted

    …it is remarkable to watch a rabid anti-semite and historical revisionist like Myers being defended by the zionists…

  4. Joe Small

    I know this isn’t on topic but there’s an article in the Cork Examiner from July 1969 that describes Myers, then a leftie, being arrested & charged with the possession of an offensive weapon as he protested against a visiting South African cricket team. How time changes people. At the same event, Henry Kelly (no, really) was arrested for assaulting a Garda and fined £2

    1. RuilleBuille

      I was told by someone who was there that he cried and pleaded with them not to charge him. He quickly dropped out of left wing activity after that.

  5. SiJu Cat

    It’s almost like Kevin Myers has controversial opinions for money. Well he used to anyway.

  6. phil

    Myers was always offending people, he was very predictable, I thought that was kinda the point, he was representative of of a niche group of Irish people, and it was illuminating to to find out what those people thought about whatever issue Myers was writing about. I rarely agreed with him. If I wasnt aquatinted with the subject matter, he was doubly useful to me as I assumed I would be naturally on the other side of that issue.

    However, he caught me out around 2008/9 when he was commenting on the Economic crash and who was to blame, I agreed with him for the first time, and enjoyed the bile he was spouting. Those people he identified dissevered it, and he was far more articulate than I was .

    I think they should have left the article up, I believe its ok to see things we find distasteful …

    1. I'm "alright" Jack. Mad Jack is on annual leave.

      It’s all bullying the libtards are worse than the anti semites

      Thanks for your comments it’s refreshing to read someone with an ounce of sense

  7. Ron

    Can we all stop giving this waste of space old man Myers anymore coverage. He has been sacked. Justice has been served. The world is a better place bla bla bla. Let’s stop giving him the attention he obviously craves

  8. Truth in the News

    When are O’Hanlon and Harris going to be confronted and fired, the old bile that
    Cruise O’Brien cooked up that they continued with needs to seen what is, an
    incitement to create hatred to one particular political group, that they themselves
    were connected to or belonged to at certain stage of their careers…and fell out with
    However they never wrote anything about their down at heel original paymaster
    Tony O’Reilly.

  9. Lord Snowflakee

    Does it really? You mean like if some English lad was saying the Irish are all drunks if he saw you with a pint?

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