It’s not often that something makes me angry enough to resort to language befitting of Devil’s Kitchen, but Googling for news of the recent European Court of Human Rights case about crucifixes in Italian schools brought me to this article in the Daily Mail with the headline shown above (they might subsequently edit the headline).
No, you lazy, ignorant f**kwit of a journalist Nick Pisa, THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS IS NOT PART OF THE EU. It is the Human Rights Court of the Council of Europe. It’s not the EU. Get it? Thicko. You could have found that out in, oh, all of 10 seconds by checking with Google and coming across the court’s page on Wikipedia.
And people always whine that blogs are inaccurate and disreputable… I maintain that this blog is a lot more accurate than the UK press on European political matters.
[UPDATE - 22h00 CET]
The Daily Mail have now changed the headline, and @Phelim on Twitter has informed me that the journalist in question is blaming the London sub-editors.
Jon Worth. European, social democrat, federalist, feminist, atheist, anti-monarchist, ENTJ. Inline skater. Blogger, website designer, avid Mac user, trainer.
C’est une colère saine, comme dirait Ségolène
You know what’s really sad, the Dutch Public News broadcaster has a similar headline:
“EU-court bans cross in class rooms”, and then it starts talking about the European court of human rights…
Annoyingly, Manuela Mesco does the same thing in the Guardian today, even linking it to the Lisbon Treaty: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/nov/04/italy-crucifixes-classroom-european-court
1) The journalist never writes the headline
2) The Mail is not into journalism. Nor is it into honest policy advocacy, as you are. It is a straight-up propaganda organ.
I know the journalist doesn’t write the headline. But the journalist can make sure that no inaccurate things appear in their name, and could even have put at the top of the piece: note to subeditors – this court is NOT the EU. So Pisa deserves all he gets.
If that makes you apoplectic, then don’t EVER read the comments after the Liberal Conspiracy piece on the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty…
hey Jon, what could you expect?
First they create a Council of ministers and a European Council within the EU, just to make sure it isn’t too easy to distinguish them at first sight from the Council of Europe.
Then the EU takes the flag and the anthem of the Council of Europe and make them its own.
Then it develops its own Fundamental Rights Agency in Vienna and citizenship and culture programs, so that you can’t even say that the Council of Europe is specialised in Human rights, democracy and citizenship issues.
I can understand why most people could be confused….
[...] to treaties, or European institutions they tend to cock up. Not just the Nationalist scaremongering Daily Mail (Which a heck of a lot of Conservative members read, but the Observer as well but they balance it [...]