Pure idiocy

What does the media think it is doing, promoting this schoolyard bullying incident that has "gone viral"?

Everyone knows that the videoing of fights amongst school kids and posting them up on Facebook has become a large part of a bullying/cyberbullying vicious cycle. Apparently, this particular one was pulled from Facebook/Youtube pretty quickly, only to appear in the Fairfax media yesterday. What was Fairfax thinking? It was giving more publicity to a video that did not deserve it, and has only led to further appalling consequences.

The reason for it being pulled from Facebook (or Youtube?)was not clear to me, but from the Sky News report noted on this page of the Daily Telegraph, it might have had something to do with the fact that the idiots who posted it put a telephone number at the end as being the one for the young bully's home, and encouraged people to ring and abuse him and his family.

Turns out the number was for the home of a couple of old folk who have nothing to do with this at all, and received many highly abusive calls; some from overseas.

So, you might say: good on the Daily Telegraph for including this corrective.

Um, no, wait a minute. The body of the Daily Telegraph article says that the mother of the bully was interviewed on Channel 7 Today Tonight and "demanded an apology from the victim":

"We don't need this posted everywhere," she said. "I would like him to apologise."

This Daily Telegraph report was picked up in the (second) post on the story by right wing Anerican site Hot Air. Given that their first story was full of comments with gushing praise for the victim having had his revenge on the bully (with barely a handful of comments noting that it was pure good luck that he didn't accidentally kill the bully and end up at real risk of a trial for manslaughter) this revelation of the mother wanting an apology was too much:

Listen up, you worthless brood mare: if you raised your kids not to be bullies, they wouldn’t get bodyslammed. Now f**k off, because there’s a good chance you’re going to be demanding another apology in the future from the judge that puts your stupid brat behind bars.

That was a comment by "Madisonconservative". Yes, there is so much to admire on the Right of American politics at the moment.

One small problem: go look at the video of the story from Today Tonight (I am not sure how long it will be available) and it appears clear that the Daily Telegraph has misquoted the mother. She is referring to her own boy apologising.

The mother in fact comes across very well in the Today Tonight story. She is very embarrassed by her son's actions, and becomes emotional when she complains about it being splattered all over the internet. Who can blame her? She considers her son has made a big mistake and paid for it; it doesn't need to follow him indefinitely on line.

Now, hopefully the mother has more sense than to be reading the internet to see what people are saying about this. But The Daily Telegraph has had the uncorrected story up all day - and unless they have seen some part of the Channel 7 video that we haven't - it is a clear mistake which should be corrected immediately. If she is receiving abusive phone calls, and given what happened earlier in this story, that would seem very likely, I hope she sues the Daily Telegraph.

The Daily Telegraph Facebook page has had a comment up for 7 hours pointing out they are mis-quoting the mother: why is the webpage uncorrected?

As for the continued simple minded praise and cheering that is coming from websites about this video: they continue to disgust me.

UPDATE:

The Daily Telegraph is featuring an apology this morning, but it's hardly profuse:

IN an article published in The Daily Telegraph yesterday headlined "Bully's angry mum wants victim to apologise", it was written that bully Ritchard Gale's mother Tina wanted her son's victim to apologise for slamming her son to the ground.

But she had, in fact, said she wanted her son to apologise to his victim.

The Daily Telegraph apologises for the error.

What's more, on line, it appears above the original story of the incident from (at least) a couple of days ago, not the story in which the paper defames the mother! In fact, as you can see from the screenshot, the apology is the most popular story; but the second most popular story is still the (uncorrected when you click on it) report from yesterday:


Clearly, as at the time I write this, there may still be hundreds (thousands?) of people following Tweeted, emailed or Facebooked links to the incorrect story, and they will not see the correction.

When I posted last evening, I noted there had been a message on the Daily Tele's Facebook page for at least 7 hours telling them they had got it wrong. It also looks like some of the commenters took to emailing the Tele to point out the mistake, as this poor woman was copping abuse from all over the world for something she never did.

The apology seems to have gone on line at midnight local time, and yet, as I say, the link to the original wrong story still does not carry the apology.

Hey, Daily Telegraph: look at the title of this post. It's for you.

UPDATE 2: I see that Hot Air has a large "correction" now - although it is not as clear as it could be:

Update: Corrected — bully’s mom wants son to apologize

Whose son? Why not try this - Corrected - bully's mom wants her son to apologize.

Idiots.

UPDATE 3: what did it take? A phone call from a lawyer? I see that sometime in the last hour or two, the Daily Telegraph finally made their incorrect story page disappear. Congratulations, and where's your cheque book?

UPDATE 4: the Daily Telegraph has dropped the apology from its front page already. (It is still on the site, if you know where to find it.) Barely 12 hours is considered enough to give the apology prominence, is it?

UPDATE 5: Pssst: Daily Tele. Your Facebook entry for this story is still headed:

The mother of a school bully whose video has gone viral wants the victim to apologise. See her side of the story.

And the only link is to the now removed story. Try putting a link to the apology and correction, you incompetents.