Monday, April 18, 2011

Charlie Brooker under fire for tabloid hack attack

Writers unhappy as Brooker accuses journalists of 'actively making the world worse'

Charlie Brooker was on typically coruscating form in his Guardian column this week - applying his trademark acerbic analysis to the News of the World phone-hacking scandal and plunging his stiletto into the hearts of tabloid journalists and "the harrowing leukaemia-of-the-soul their career choice inflicts upon them".

Brooker's latest rant was, as ever, well received by his usual constituency, many of whom made their weekly pilgrimage to Twitter to applaud their hero, whose argument was based on the premise that tabloid reporters are "actively making the world worse".

However, Twitter has become the natural habitat of the media professional, many of whom have links to the tabloids or consider themselves to be champions of journalism in all its forms. So this week his views have also attracted some heavyweight criticism that has set the social networking site ablaze.

Leading the nay-sayers was Brooker's fellow Guardian columnist Suzanne Moore who commented: "Attacking tabloids in Guardian as Charlie Brooker does unedifying. Broad sheets pick up tab stories 2 days later and smother in po-mo [post modern] irony."

Times columnist Janice Turner, better known to Twitter users by her handle Victoria Peckham, also registered her displeasure, declaring: "Oh Charlie Brooker clamber down off your moral high-cock. You make a living sneering at TV, not curing AIDS. You sound as sour as Daily Mail."

Meanwhile Brooker's assertion that "successfully forging the belief that tabloid journalism is a worthwhile use of your brief time on this planet must require a mental leap beyond the reach of Galileo" obviously incensed Sun journalist Tom Thorogood.

His succinct reply befitted someone who works for a tabloid. He commented: "Charlie Brooker can fuck himself. That column is so far off the mark. At least only 8 people outside of the left wing media bubble read it."

More measured criticism came from a Twitter user called Rebecca_mt who wrote: "There's something unbearably smug about a Guardian journalist wittering on how dreadful and evil Other Hacks are." The words "sanctimonious bullshit" were also used to describe the column by at least one reader.

Other critics pointed out that the Guardian website had used the old tabloid trick of 'sexing up' a thought piece about the concept of journalism with a picture of a glamorous young women, in this case Sienna Miller.

The criticism obviously didn't pass Brooker by, and he decided to defend himself on the social networking site. His initial gambit was to say: "Hey, I never claimed I'm *not* wasting *my* life actively making the world worse."

He even got dragged into a conversation with well known Tweeter and anonymous blogger FleetStreetFox who scolded him by saying: "It's not criticism I mind. But reducing every member in one industry to the level of its worst member is just dumb."

At first Brooker appeared conciliatory, confessing: "The reaction has surprised me though." But by lunchtime he had obviously grown tired of the carping from his fellow writers and reverted to attack mode, dismissing his critics with another well-aimed barb.

"Fuck me what weeping kids some hacks are. I write similar stuff *every week*. Usually about Mac owners & whatnot. No sense of humour. Pff."