Monday 17 January 2011

Recommended reading on Liz Jones and Jo Yeates

From Jonathan at No Sleep 'Til Brooklands:

Of all the the journalists in Britain you would want to write about the Joanna Yeates murder, Liz Jones is probably nestling somewhere near the bottom of the list. You might think, after all, that Jones' penchant for consumerist superficiality and ill-directed moaning doesn't quite carry the gravitas required to really deal with such a case of genuine human tragedy and emotion. Well, you'd be right.

Jones' crass, can't-quite-believe-it's-for-real article, from yesterday's Mail on Sunday, includes such vacuous 'insights' as:

It's Friday night and I’m in the Ram bar on Park Street in Bristol.

This is where Joanna Yeates spent her last evening...

The bar is OK but ordinary. The wine list, chalked on a board, says ‘Lauren Perrier’.

I wish she had spent what were probably her last hours on earth somewhere lovelier.

And:

I find Tesco, and go in. I almost buy that upmarket pizza; the choice tells me Jo wanted a lovely life, something above the ordinary.

She goes on to cover antique street lights and trying to pay the Clifton Suspension Bridge toll with a designer button, which doesn't work. Could anyone, anyone, link that non-event with Yeates' murder? Jones can:

Isn’t it interesting that you can snatch a young woman’s life away from her in the most violent, painful, frightening way possible, take away her future children, her future Christmases, take away everything she loves, and yet there are elaborate systems in place to ensure you do not cross a bridge for only 30 pence?

Jonathan notes:

Well...no. No, that isn't interesting. It's irrelevant, facile and absurd. Bridge tolls are no more relevant to this murder than the tooth fairy is. There is no sad irony, no lingering meaning to be found here...[it's] possibly the weirdest paragraph I have ever read in a national newspaper column.

Other bloggers commenting on Jones' piece include Anton Vowl and Shouting At Cows.

7 comments:

  1. Two links to Anton and none to shouting at Cows.

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  2. Neil - The Shouting at Cows article is a guest post on Anton's blog.

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  3. Can I recommend The Daily Mash's spoof of it? Really rather good: http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/opinion/columnists/is-lovely-liz-becoming-just-another-thumbnail-on-the-daily-mail-website?-201101173437/

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  4. The Daily Mash posted a great response to it.

    http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/opinion/columnists/is-lovely-liz-becoming-just-another-thumbnail-on-the-daily-mail-website?-201101173437/

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  5. I am glad to see that apart from two exceptions, every one of the 190 odd comments are ultra critical of this so-called piece of journalism. And good old Daily Mash for writing that parody.

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  6. Ahhhhhhhhhhh - I'm not paying attention here.

    I'm blaming being on nights for this.

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  7. haha, I didn't know about the Daily Mash. It's the English 'Onion'. My new favourite site...next tot his one, naturally.

    Oh, what is Liz Jones playing at - is she angling to be the next Jan Moir?

    ReplyDelete

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