There is a particular journalist who writes a column for the Sunday Times where she viciously and disdainfully attacks any poor soul towards whom she feels some antagonism. I have latterly stopped reading her column but foolishly decided to read what she had written in today’s paper. She had singled out both Amal Clooney and Meghan Markle and was so thoroughly nasty about both of them that I felt compelled to write a comment at the foot of the article. What I said wasn’t insulting our defaming. I merely stated that it was a pity that someone with this journalist’s wit and intelligence wasn’t rather putting her talent for writing towards much more honourable subject matters and that I had hoped that she wouldn’t look back one day and regret all the things she has written. I felt that by not respecting others she was doing the most damage to her own self-respect. There is a period of 5 minutes after one has submitted a comment where one can edit or remove the comment you have made before it gets published. I sat on it for a while and then made a couple of changes , alas too late and beyond the time that one has to edit the comment. By now I was starting to angst and my ‘ good Christian ‘ side was telling me that I shouldn’t have said anything that I should have just lifted her up in prayer. Too late for regrets.
What happened next was interesting if not illuminating. My comment was not immediately published but was assigned a ‘ pending ‘ reference. This clearly meant that it was being checked over in-case it was defamatory or insulting to the journalist in question. This led me to question the double standards that are in place enabling the journalist to defame and insult people but not allowing others to have an opinion or less than glowing response to an article. I had signed my name in full and would have loved the journalist to reply to me and for us to open up some discourse. This was clearly never going to happen but to their credit, they did eventually publish my comment some 5 hours later. Given that some other comments were no different to mine, I would imagine that these stringent regulations and provisions are applied to everyone who contributes to the comments section.
My final observation and the one that actually saddens me more than these articles penned by this journalist, are the comments where people praise her for her acerbic and sometimes vile tongue. All too often I come across people who base their humour and their laughs at the expense of others, delighting in bringing others down or celebrating their misfortunes. They are purportedly secure in their group of like-minded fellow critics but I wonder where the deepest insecurities lie?
