The important lessons after Jason Arday’s death
The death of former Cambridge professor Jason Arday is over a very complicated affair. Of course investigations were needed, and nobody was suggesting that no-one should be accountable. But this post is not about that. It’s about what many have been appalled at since.
The heaped pressure upon Jason (even after he resigned) led one writer to call this ‘a digital lynching‘. Others have been accused of the same, and yet were nowhere near subjected to the barage of hate and abuse that he was. When he died, he was a husband and father of two young children.
YouTube political commentator Maximilian Robespierre goes more into detail. At one point, The Spectator has 12 articles at once going for him, just before he died.
This publication (owned by the hedge fund billionaire who also owns GB News and UnHerd) once employed Boris Johnson, likely the biggest liar ever to have graced the political world. Whose lies ended up in thousands of people dying – some unable to hold the hand of their loved ones, due to ‘following the rules’. But apparently that’s okay.
One writer at Novara Media said that she did not write about the issue at the time, as she did not want to join the media circus, as it felt disrespectful. After Jason’s death, she learned that he knew about the site. And is now haunted by the fact that he may have visited this excellent publication, and ‘seen silence’. She did what she thought was right, and even that has consequences.
On a radio phone-in with James O’Brien, black people said how on meeting him, they had been inspired to turn their lives around. James said some of the journalists were ‘gleeful’ in their coverage. They must have known how this would have ended, unless they are completely devoid of empathy.
This wonderful man never stole a bag of crisps. Lord Simon Woolley (a friend of Jason Arday)
Comparisons with Caroline Flack
Of course, Jason’s death has borne comparisons with TV presenter Caroline Flack, who hung herself a few years ago, again amid huge negative press intrusion, while awaiting trial for a domestic issue.
Likewise, Caroline had her problems, but was known by everyone to be kind and affable. One positive result of all the nastiness, was a mass amnesty of ‘nasty gossip magazines’ in hair salons. Which have never returned to those who joined the boycott.
Journalism can be true, but not cruel
We can keep going back again and again:
The South African paediatrician who on coming to England during a campaign to whip up public disorder against paedophiles, had her home attacked by readers of a national newspaper.
Words have consequences. Yes, journalists have every right to hold people to account (it would be good if they did it more for politicians that are destroying our planet). But vitriol and bullying people to want to end their lives is not journalism. Or if it is, it’s of the worst kind.
Journalism is about telling the truth. But truth does not require cruelty. A journalist can be rigorous, honest and challenging. While still remembering that the people behind the story are human beings.
