Times Exec Blames MumsNet For Bringing Down News of the World – You Couldn’t Make It Up
The Executive Editor of the Times blamed blogging middle-class mothers for the death of The News of The World in an angry interview on Channel4 News this evening.
He stopped short of suggesting they should stick to nursing babies and doing the washing up but Roger Alton was strident in denouncing the evil consequences of British mothers going on Twitter. He characterised them as heartless shortbread-eaters who were destroying livelihoods from the kitchen table.
“the comfortable middle-class mothers of MumsNet sitting down to their fair-trade tea and organic shortbread biscuits I hope are very pleased with the Twitter campaign they organised, getting advertisers not to advertise in the News of The World. They’ve done as much as anybody to close this paper and put 200 reporters, photographers, editors and young people just starting their careers out of work.. These yummy mummies have done as much as anybody to put them out of work. I hope they’re feeling pleased with themselves.”
As people on Twitter pointed out, Alton omitted to mention Andy Coulson or any other News Corps employees.
Channel 4 interview below, Alton at 2.20
Posted: 9th, July 2011 | In: Key Posts, Technology Comments (6) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
July 10th, 2011 at 8:52 am
I once joined mumsnet after having my baby. I left quickly – they terrified me! And I am not a woman easily frightened.
July 10th, 2011 at 8:27 am
He’d definitely had a few down at the bar in Wapping when he said this. True colours and all that, let’s see what he has to say on The Politics Show this morning.
July 10th, 2011 at 6:43 am
I have to confess to an intense dislike of the Mumsnet forum…. the dictatorship of motherhood .As Alton said, the yummy mummies of the internet who KNOW BEST. Very annoying…..
July 10th, 2011 at 1:08 am
It has been suggested to me by those nice people at Dial-a-Brief that, in order to comply with Anorak’s stringent rules on the full disclosure of any possible conflicts of interests, I should declare that I am, indeed, a mum.
Furthermore I have, on occasions, eaten organic shortbread biscuits, and do drink fairtrade tea whenever it’s on special offer.
Probably the biggest conflict of interest of all, however, is that I am Mum to a junior doctor who is currently on her paediatrics rotation.
I fully accept that Rebekah Brooks may know the difference between a paedophile and a paediatrician, unlikely as it may seem given her language skills, but the vast majority of the morons who rallied to her banner on her ‘name and shame’ campaign didn’t, and don’t.
I oppose all lynch mobs, but lynch mobs which endanger my daughter rise above the level of generalised abhorrence to the ‘mother tigress at bay’ end of the spectrum. Which is OK, since I’m good at the whole mother tigress at bay thing…
July 9th, 2011 at 10:14 pm
Oh, bugger.
We’ve been rumbled.
Just as well Roger doesn’t know about the hardcore knitting porn groups…
July 9th, 2011 at 7:14 pm
Social Media and its part in News International’s Downfall…
No sooner had News of The World announced its role as an ablative coating for News International closure, than various parties were quick to proclaim Facebook, twitter and mumsnet as teh causes of its collapse. MumnsNet? I hear you ask – WTF is that…