Monday 20 July 2009

Even more anon

On Thursday I took the New Statesman's senior political editor Mehdi Hasan and human rights academic Conor Gearty to task for their ill-informed generalisations about bloggers and blogging.

Prompted by my post, Bob has been looking into Hasan's background, with interesting results. And Minnie in the comments to his post claims that the NS's new political editor was a member of the C4 team that screened last year's Christmas Day message from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Some commenters have described Hasan's political views as 'sixth form'. My son is about to enter the sixth form, and I would suggest this is an insult to sixth formers everywhere. The Ahmadinejad stunt was positively pre-adolescent, motivated as it was by a childish desire to shock the grown-ups ('What can we do that's a really radical alternative to all that royal stuff? I know! Let's provide a platform for a Holocaust denier and reactionary clerical fascist!')

As for Gearty, an anonymous commenter reminds me that he was one of the signatories to the one-sided and simplistic 'Israel must lose' letter in the Guardian last (see here, and also Bob again).

7 comments:

bob said...

Do we know for a fact that Hasan was involved in the C4 stunt? Seems plausible. And that's interesting about Gearty.

Martin said...

Not sure, Bob. I suppose I should be principled and not reproduce rumours that I can't back up. But even without it, your list of Hasan's other follies is enough to make one wary.

bob said...

Well, you didn't report as fact, so I wouldn't worry.

bob said...

Minnie left a comment clarifying: Hasan "was a member of the Channel 4 commissioning team under Dorothy Byrne. That's a small team of commissioners (no more than 6-8) and Hasan was one of those commissioning editors. Byrne is the most senior and therefore gave quotes to the press when the desired furore kicked off but it is hard to believe that this very vocal guy wasn't involved because he was part of the team that commissioned it. My ex-boyfriend has worked in TV so that's how I heard this stuff. I can't tell you his name though!"

Martin said...

Thanks, Bob

bob said...

Done some googling. He was Editor, News and Current Affairs from October 08, under Dorothy Byrne. The alternative Xmas message was December 08.

Byrne and Hasan commissioned the interesting "It shouldn't happen to a Muslim" (Peter Oborne for Despatches) earlier that year.

Hasan is only 30...

For more see Dorothy Byrne is a sucker « Engage; Mehdi Hasan: The big transfer of the season in TV news - Media, News - The Independent

No more from me, I promise!

Martin said...

Thanks again, and no need to hold back, if you find out more.

The Independent profile is interesting - I thought Dimbleby was probably being diplomatic in describing Hasan as 'forthright and assertive', if the latter's snarky outburst in response to the HP post is anything to go by.

And I'm afraid my hackles rise at supposedly intelligent people who toss around the word 'Islamophobic' , as if it had any credibility, at every opportunity.