[News] Alistair stewart

[Bold Seagull]

I guarantee if he hadn't stood down there would've been a twitter driven campaign to get him to resign or to get ITN to sack him. The fact he resigned has prevented it.

Please can you elaborate by what you mean by 'whataboutism.' Not a word I've ever come across before. Many thanks.

Wikipedia can explain for you...

Whataboutism, also known as whataboutery, is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy that attempts to discredit an opponent's position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument.[1][2][3] It is particularly associated with Soviet and Russian propaganda.[4][5][6] When criticisms were leveled at the Soviet Union during the Cold War, the Soviet response would often be "What about..." followed by an event in the Western world.

 

[GT49er]

There hasn't been any outrage.

You don't follow Tw@tter then?

 

[Bold Seagull]

You don't follow Tw@tter then?

No. Not really. If you're forming the entire basis of a collective outrage occurring based on Twitter, then you can probably justify anything to be honest.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Yes it is. You may be able to detect nuances that x or y might have been gay, but the great William certainly never wrote in praise of LGBT. Tolerance at best - and that at a push. Something positive - no.
And for heaven's sake, look at the context of a post before picking up on the minutiae!

You are trying to argue with a man who reached the finals of Mastermind with the plays of William Shakespeare as his chosen specialised subject.
I know who I would rather believe.

 

[Beach Seagull]

Wikipedia can explain for you...

Whataboutism, also known as whataboutery, is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy that attempts to discredit an opponent's position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument.[1][2][3] It is particularly associated with Soviet and Russian propaganda.[4][5][6] When criticisms were leveled at the Soviet Union during the Cold War, the Soviet response would often be "What about..." followed by an event in the Western world.

A new one on me but I stand by my Trevor Sinclair comments.

 

[Fitzcarraldo]

Let's break this down.

He is a newsreader on a major terrestrial channel and is bound by impartiality rules.

However, he decides to get into an argument online regarding the financing of the Royal Family. He is a newsreader, not a commentator.

When he feels the argument isn't going his way he pompously quotes a Shakespearean put down that likens an opponent in a debate to an ape.

Unfortunately he directs it towards someone of colour.

Racist? Most probably not but at least has an air of self entitlement and pomposity. Not a good look for a newsreader.

He has rightly apologised but has also effectively put his hand up for redundancy.

I bet he is feeling a right plum this morning.

Innit. Seems pretty clear cut to me. He would have stringent social media rules as part of his job and I suspect making a comment that could be construed as racist goes against those rules. Same as any job. Break the rules, be prepared to take the punishment. We don't know everything that led up this anyway, for instance he could have been on a final warning?

Not sure why a newsreader would go on Twitter, must be less risky ways to get an occasional laugh.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Innit. Seems pretty clear cut to me. He would have stringent social media rules as part of his job and I suspect making a comment that could be construed as racist goes against those rules. Same as any job. Break the rules, be prepared to take the punishment. We don't know everything that led up this anyway, for instance he could have been on a final warning?

Not sure why a newsreader would go on Twitter, must be less risky ways to get an occasional laugh.

Yet Laura Kuensberg says what she wants, especially about having seen postal votes before election day.

 

[GT49er]

No. Not really. If you're forming the entire basis of a collective outrage occurring based on Twitter, then you can probably justify anything to be honest.

The point is that although you say there has been no outrage, there has in fact been loads of it on Tw@tter. Of course, that shouldn't matter, but it can lose people their jobs. Sadly.

 

[Brovion]

Wondered how long it would take for this descend into a debate about whether Shakespeare is racist.

Let's break this down.

He is a newsreader on a major terrestrial channel and is bound by impartiality rules.

However, he decides to get into an argument online regarding the financing of the Royal Family. He is a newsreader, not a commentator.

When he feels the argument isn't going his way he pompously quotes a Shakespearean put down that likens an opponent in a debate to an ape.

Unfortunately he directs it towards someone of colour.

Racist? Most probably not but at least has an air of self entitlement and pomposity. Not a good look for a newsreader.

He has rightly apologised but has also effectively put his hand up for redundancy.

I bet he is feeling a right plum this morning.



Sent from my MAR-LX1A using Tapatalk

Indeed. Five years ago maybe I would have been appalled at the idea of someone having to resign simply for quoting Shakespeare. But the times have changed. Stewart's an intelligent man, he must have known that people are regularly crucified on social media for a similar level of offence. Especially on Twitter which has a reputation for intolerance.

It is sad that we've come to this, but here we are anyway. He's only himself to blame.

 

[Bold Seagull]

The point is that although you say there has been no outrage, there has in fact been loads of it on Tw@tter. Of course, that shouldn't matter, but it can lose people their jobs. Sadly.

Hardly even justifies it being called outrage. You could say there has been more outrage on this thread at people being outraged than there has actual people being outraged in the first place.

 

[Lenny Rider]

One of our own, as he started off on Southern Television, reading the Lunchtime news and on Day by Day.

Classic example of a good old fashioned storm in a tea cup being promoted in these days of political correctness into something more akin to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

And the sting in the tail being that despite saying Mr Stewart shouldn't be leaving ITN over this, the person who originally complained has no doubt got a few quid for his story from the media.

 

[worthingseagull123]

Some people love being offended.

Sadly the are becoming a nation of pansies.

 

[studio150]

Interestingly the other fella at the centre of this, Martin Shapland is not only being pretty universally condemned for playing the race card. There are screen shots of his Twitter, (in replies in link below) where he is clearly making racist skin colour comments about white people. And others who say they've saved his Twitter comments accuse him of trying to quickly delete them.

Edit: someone new now weighs in support of him that he's linked.

https://twitter.com/MShapland/status/1222851976582565889

View attachment 119620

He has now deleted all of his twitter comments other than a clarification on Alistair Stewart where he is saying he just wanted an apology.
However loads of people have screen grabbed his comments all along the same lines as above.

 

[Bold Seagull]

I don't see how any of those comments are racist.

Because they're not. This thread is full of outrage at people people outraged. It's actually hilarious. It's not political correctness gone mad, it's just gone mad.

 

[Billy the Fish]

I completely agree, and it should be their problem, but because of our press, and you can read my previous post, millions see The Sun, Mail and Express lead with their twisted version of things, and it becomes something it isn't. ITN aren't reacting if none of these leading media outlets don't pick it up.

So when you say 'people like you', no you're wrong, it's people who perpetuate the likes of the Mail, Sun, Express and all their lies, deceit and drivel that situations like this keep happening. If it wasn't for them, it would have largely stayed as an incidental quickly forgotten spat on twitter.

No one has been outraged by this, and people like yourself suggest it's other people, like me, like you've just done because you swallow what these media streams tell you, that its the liberals, that its PC gone mad etc. etc. etc. just like they did for 40 years with the EU. They need something else to invent now, so it's outrage and political correctness. "Oh it's political correctness gone mad, oh it's all the liberals outraged" - bollocks basically. There hasn't been any outrage.

So there wasn't any outrage outside of twitter and yet they still felt that he should resign, presumably just in case there was subsequent outrage!

This is exactly what I'm saying is wrong - the bloke has lost his job because a big corporate company feels like it has to pre-empt any reaction by getting a resignation in first, just because one person called racism.

Anyone saying "he should've thought before he used the word ape in reference to a black person" is part of the problem IMHO. Language is all about context you can't just take individual words and apply meaning that wasn't intended. We've been on this slippery slope for a while now and it's only going to get worse, we need to draw a line somewhere and this really should be it.

 

[Bakero]

Because they're not. This thread is full of outrage at people people outraged. It's actually hilarious. It's not political correctness gone mad, it's just gone mad.

People love a bit of the old outrage these days. It's all the rage.

 

[Bold Seagull]

So there wasn't any outrage outside of twitter and yet they still felt that he should resign, presumably just in case there was subsequent outrage!

This is exactly what I'm saying is wrong - the bloke has lost his job because a big corporate company feels like it has to pre-empt any reaction by getting a resignation in first, just because one person called racism.

Anyone saying "he should've thought before he used the word ape in reference to a black person" is part of the problem IMHO. Language is all about context you can't just take individual words and apply meaning that wasn't intended. We've been on this slippery slope for a while now and it's only going to get worse, we need to draw a line somewhere and this really should be it.

Anyone saying there is outrage is part of the problem. Anyone thinking Twitter is some kind of gauge of opinion is part of the problem. We don't even know what has happened between ITN and Stewart. ITV tolerate Piers Morgan for goodness sake, they're not in the habit of firing people for the odd rogue tweet. It might be more like "I was retiring anyway, I'll take a nice fat golden handshake and take the retirement now" - but all those getting on their high horse that it's some kind of PC backlash is nonsense really. If a private company wants to have contractual obligations of it's staff and rules for their presence on social media, that is up to them, unless you believe in a nanny-state that prevents companies from have their own standards and disciplinary processes - not that we even know in this instance whether ITN have acted on that.

 

[Wilko]

Interestingly the other fella at the centre of this, Martin Shapland is not only being pretty universally condemned for playing the race card. There are screen shots of his Twitter, (in replies in link below) where he is clearly making racist skin colour comments about white people. And others who say they've saved his Twitter comments accuse him of trying to quickly delete them.

Edit: someone new now weighs in support of him that he's linked.

https://twitter.com/MShapland/status/1222851976582565889

View attachment 119620

But here you have a major issue with the Woke SJW crew, they are of the opinion that you cannot be racism towards white people because racism is about those with power enforcing or suppressing down on those without power, therefore by definition you cannot be racist to white people. The same argument is applied to sexism in that you cannot be sexist towards men.

As a soft, liberal lefty even I can see that this woke, perma-offended movement is complete and utter bollocks. How can we try and move towards equality by stating that quoting Shakespeare is racist yet saying whatever you like, no matter how offensive about white people is completely and utterly fair game and allowable. Utter horsesh!t.

 

[Billy the Fish]

Anyone saying there is outrage is part of the problem. Anyone thinking Twitter is some kind of gauge of opinion is part of the problem. We don't even know what has happened between ITN and Stewart. ITV tolerate Piers Morgan for goodness sake, they're not in the habit of firing people for the odd rogue tweet. It might be more like "I was retiring anyway, I'll take a nice fat golden handshake and take the retirement now" - but all those getting on their high horse that it's some kind of PC backlash is nonsense really. If a private company wants to have contractual obligations of it's staff and rules for their presence on social media, that is up to them, unless you believe in a nanny-state that prevents companies from have their own standards and disciplinary processes - not that we even know in this instance whether ITN have acted on that.

All fair points.

I don't know WTF to believe any more

 

[clapham_gull]

People love a bit of the old outrage these days. It's all the rage.

Alistair Stewart wasn't sacked because of "outrage" - he was gone before the story broke. He breached ITV's editorial guidelines.

He is a newsreader and will have all sorts of things in his contract regarding impartiality. I shouldn't know his personal view on the funding of the Royal Family, but lnow I do.

This isn't a first "offence" and he appears inclined to having arguments online, then calling people an "angry ape" when he starts losing the argument.

Should know better.