The Treasury has just announced that UK newspapers will receive up to £35 million in additional government advertising revenue as part of its COVID-19 communications campaign. The digital spend is splashing out on some of our rivals.* Guido is glad to see that Canary editor-in-chief comrade Kerry-Anne Mendoza is the beneficiary of the taxpayers’ largesse. Rishi Sunak proving once again that the Tories are committed to media plurality…
*No taxpayers are harmed in the production of Guido, none of the team have been furloughed. Nor have we noticed any government advertising coming our way…
After the hard left’s #BoycottTheGuardian Twitter frenzy last week, the Guardian’s NUJ chapel has now rescinded its belated approval for The Canary editor-in-chief Kerry-Anna Mendoza to come and speak at the Guardian’s offices later this month.
According to Mark DiStefano, Guardian journalists were emailed yesterday by Philip Inman who revealed that Mendoza’s lecture had been cancelled altogether by the NUJ over The Canary’s shameful complicitness in the deportation of Guardian freelance journalist Carl David Goette-Luciak from Nicaragua:
“The NUJ has today withdrawn the request to stage the event in Kings Place after it condemned the detention, intimidation and deportation of Guardian freelance journalist Carl David Goette-Luciak. “It is clear that the main source of intimidation was The Canary news website, which named Goette-Luciak as an opposition stooge – an accusation that quickly led to his arrest and deportation…”
The hard left were unapologetic over the incident – Mendoza put out a statement saying that Goette-Luciak’s arrest and deportation “reinforced rather than undermined” The Canary’s actions and has published further articles suggesting Goette-Luciak is a “foreign agent”, while Corbyn cheerleader Chris Williamson piled in again after supporting the #BoycottTheGuardian hashtag last week:
Charming bunch…
As Guido reported earlier, journalists at the Guardian have been getting into a bit of a tizzy about the prospect of The Canary editor-in-chief Kerry-Anne Mendoza coming to speak at a lecture next month, leading to the amusing hard left #BoycottTheGuardian Twitterstorm last night. Will she still be boycotting them on 11th October?
The Guardian‘s NUJ Chapel convened an emergency meeting at 2pm today, where Guido understands that those present voted 35-8 in favour of allowing Mendoza to speak. Controversially, former Guardian writer Marc Wadsworth – expelled from the Labour Party for abusing Jewish MP Ruth Smeeth – was one of those who spoke in support of Mendoza at the meeting.
The Chapel also voted in favour of spending £500 of NUJ subs on drinks, leaving some Guardian hacks less than impressed. Marina Hyde reportedly asked “why don’t we roll out the red carpet too?” What better way to show solidarity than with champagne and canapés?
The rest of the political world looked on in absolute bafflement last night as the hard left took aim at that notorious bastion of incorrigible right wing thoughtcrime… the Guardian.
It truly was the Judean People’s Front vs the People’s Front of Judea as The Canary organised a #BoycottTheGuardian Twitter pile-on, ostensibly “to hold the Guardian to account for its coverage of Jeremy Corbyn”. Seriously…
The specific charges were that the Guardian had been “dedicated” to spreading “spurious charges of antisemitism” against Corbyn:
Top Corbynista Chris Williamson also backed the boycott, despite having written for the “deplorable” paper himself little over a year ago:
In fact the likely real trigger for The Canary choosing the Guardian for the hard left’s latest Two Minutes of Hate was the negative reaction from Guardian journalists to Canary editor-in-chief Kerry-Anne Mendoza being invited to the Guardian offices to give the NUJ’s Claudia Jones Memorial Lecture. Guido has a lot of sympathy with Kerry-Anne in her fight against the establishment media. Really can’t understand why Guardian hacks want to “no platform” her. If they think she is wrong they should take the opportunity to challenge her. Play nicely, comrades…
UPDATE: Guardian journalists will be having an emergency NUJ chapel meeting at 2pm today to talk about Mendoza’s invite…
Canary editor Kerry Anne Mendoza clearly didn’t get Jezza’s Brexit-backing memo, telling Question Time she backs a second referendum. Cue a chorus of boos. If she was in the Shadow Cabinet Corbyn would sack her for such insubordination…
Byline Media, the website run by anti-free press obsessive Peter Jukes, is organising a festival on journalism in the “post truth era”… with The Canary. Over three days in June Byline will be hosting a line-up of press-hating speakers including John Cleese and Hugh Grant in a tent in Sussex, which they are genuinely billing as a “Woodstock for the Facebook generation”. The festival promises to “fight back against fake news” found in the mainstream media. Who best to lead the charge? Byline will be welcoming in Kerry Anne Mendoza, editor-in-chief of the infamous fake news site The Canary, which was behind the Portland coup conspiracy theory. Tells you all you need to know about the credibility of Byline and Jukes…
