8 January: Tim Ireland of Bloggerheads presents evidence that Glen Jenvey, who was the source for a report in the Sun about a plan by Islamists to target British Jews for harrassment, may in fact have written the very postings to a Muslim forum under an assumed name which were then presented by the Sun as evidence for the plot (I blogged this here).
20 January: A news magazine reports exactly the same story, although the words “Bloggerheads“, “blog”, and “Tim Ireland” are noticeably absent. The name of the periodical? Step forward Private Eye magazine, which has an article on page 4 of its latest issue (1228) under the heading “How Extremism Works”.
But there is something new – the detail that “the PCC is investigating a number of complaints” about the Sun‘s scare-mongering article.
Filed under: Uncategorized
I must say I’m a trifle disappointed.
Mixed emotions here – on the one hand it’s good that the Eye didn’t leave this to their rabid Islamists-under-the-bed merchant Ratbiter, and actually covered it properly (identifying it as a problem of lax journalistic standard rather than religious extremism), but it’s disappointing they couldn’t bring themselves to provide even a cursory nod in the direction of the people who actually stuck their necks out and originally brought the story into the light. Tchah. Naughty.
Shame Man! Would have thought they would have included you Tim
[…] Where’s Jenvey? Posted on January 27, 2009 by Richard Bartholomew More than two weeks after Tim Ireland at Bloggerheads raised the possibility that self-proclaimed “anti-terror expert” Glen Jenvey may have made pseudonymous postings to a Muslim web forum which he then used as evidence of extremism, we’ve seen a number of newspaper stories that used Jenvey as their source pulled from websites . Tim’s discoveries have also been picked up by Private Eye. […]
[…] or that the journalists know or care much about Bodi. The article also came on the heels of a Private Eye piece – is Ian Hislop secretly in league with Bodi and Ummah.com […]
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[…] we’ve had are two short pieces, one in the media section of the Guardian and the other in Private Eye. Ray denounced the evidence against Jenvey as “propaganda”, although he’s been […]
[…] removed the story (without any public explanation), and articles about the controversy appeared in Private Eye and the Guardian. Jenvey has strongly protested his innocence, and he claims that the Guardian […]
[…] removed the story (without any public explanation), and articles about the controversy appeared in Private Eye and the Guardian. Jenvey has strongly protested his innocence, and he claims that the Guardian […]
[…] Tim has so far been Hugh Muir of the Guardian. A reporter for Private Eye, by contrast, shamefully used Tim’s research uncredited and declared him to be a “nutter” when he […]
[…] Unity’s discussion of the evidence goes into much further detail. He goes on to note that the People journalist responsible for the Madonna story, Daniel Jones, received an email from Patrick Mercer MP’s office in March offering him information derived from Glen Jenvey, who was responsible for the fake Alan Sugar story. Remarkably, this was after Jenvey’s faking had been brought to public attention by Tim Ireland of Bloggerheads and had featured both in the Guardian and Private Eye. […]
[…] discovery led to reports in the Guardian and Private Eye (in the latter case without acknowledging Tim’s work), and in May doubts about Jenvey were […]
[…] go on to “expose”. Tim Ireland laid out the initial evidence on 8 January; Private Eye published the story (derived from Tim without credit) on 20 January, and the Guardian followed up on 28 January. […]
[…] complained about Private Eye‘s failure to credit Tim for his research at the time; to find that the journalist concerned would further stoop to such conduct was disheartening. […]
[…] a Private Eye journalist who didn’t like Tim calling him to account for using his research uncredited. Macqueen is a friend and former employee of […]
[…] of C2i, which closed following “Austin Powers-style blunders” by one of its employees; typically for the Eye, the mocking jibe has been lifted uncredited from a website, in this case that of the […]
[…] so, this was probably why the journalist concerned felt that he could use Tim’s work without giving any credit (and to make a “nutter” jibe when Tim complained). I read the Eye regularly, and […]