I am pleased with this, acerbic humour in the service of a greater truth is one thing, but this was puerile name calling and I am pleased that the PCC ruled in her favour, however I wonder if this had been someone, not in the media, would their response have been so favourable.

Has anyone told this group?

http://www.dykesonbikes.org/index.php

Yes, cjcjc, and…?

You might also remember this group. That doesn’t somehow render the term ‘nigger’ inoffensive, does it?

And?

Well, I assume they wouldn’t be making a complaint to the PCC!

I am gay, BTW. But, really, lighten up.

I would like to congratulate Clare Balding for having the courage to stick this one through. As a journalist she must have been under pressure to take it on the chin. It is part of the media culture. You are not supposed to take this sort of action against a fellow journalist but Clare did as she was entitled. It must have been ghastly for her to take that abuse in public. Just because she has a high profile job she is still a human being. She is still capable of hurt. I hope this ruling has gone some way to healing her wounded pride.

That said I do think her media position did help her in other ways. Even if she was not familiar with the complaints procedure of the Press Complaints Commission she must have known people who could advise her. Being a popular public figure she could whip up support. I am glad she got it because her case was valid.

However if you are not famous, rich or blessed with influential friends going to the PCC is far harder. True it is free but trying to navigate the process when dealing with a national is tough. The PCC rules are pretty clear but in my case I have found negotiating with Guardian Media Group to be a pretty difficult process. My case involves mental health so I attract little sympathy from anywhere outside the mental health world.

I have tried to win backing but because I am complaining against Guardian Media Group anyone with commercial connections to GMG seems to run away from me. Mental health charities are not set up to give support to people in my position. The attacks on me came from bloggers. I was writing a reply article. Had I been the subject an article the charities would have been freer to give me backing but because I was writing they are not going to send in the heavy guns against the Guardian.

Standards seem to be different with disablist abuse. We are supposed to accept pejorative language which would be unacceptable in other spheres. I have lost count of the number of times I have been told I should get a thicker skin and acquire a sense of humour. Well no. Equality means equality for everyone.

I have tried to negotiate with the Guardian but today’s ruling from the PCC about Clare Balding referred to a story which was published after mine. Yesterday I learned that the Guardian is sending its society and health editor Patrick Butler along to be a judge for the 2010 Mind Media Awards. How can the Guardian do that when they do not have credible policy on disability? I can’t work it out. I know my case is never going to be a headline grabber but rest assured I will keep plugging away at it. People with mental health problems deserve the right to write in the Guardian without facing abuse from a small number of foul-mouthed bloggers. Our freedom to speak matters.

You’ve missed the point completely cjcjc. Imagine a black journalist was described as a nigger in print, and complained about it.

If someone came along and said “hey lighten up, what about NWA?”. That would be the least convincing thing ever, wouldn’t it. Well that’s what you just did.

As someone with a bipolar condition I’d object to someone calling me a bi-cyclist – but only because I don’t ride a bike.

That said, Gill’s a dick. Didn’t he kill a baboon just so he could experience the closest feeling he could get to killing a human being?

A serial killer in the making.

Good for Claire, but sadly your headline is misleading. She’s not won an apology from AA Gill or the newpaper. She’s won a ruling from the PCC and the Sunday Times is being forced to publish it. The Sunday Times put up a defence that Gill’s language was acceptable, and lost.

Oh Gill is a total dick.

However I think it would have been better had Clare simply said – yeah, I am a dyke on a bike, get over it you prick – or similar. Rather than running to teacher.

“That said, Gill’s a dick. Didn’t he kill a baboon just so he could experience the closest feeling he could get to killing a human being?”

what a twat. like throwing a brick through a stain glass window.

‘However I think it would have been better had Clare simply said – yeah, I am a dyke on a bike, get over it you prick – or similar. Rather than running to teacher.’

If she’d had long arms and stringy ginger hair Gill might have shot her.

And another little bit of the freedom of speech just quietly slips away.

And yes, freedom of speech does include the freedom to insult people, upset them, make fun of them and even hold up their race, sexuality, disability or anything else you desire to to ridicule.

Libel and incitement to violence are the only two righteous and just exceptions to this rule.

If you didn’t like Gill’s commentary then you are entirely free to reject any more of his writings and those of anyone who might employ him: along with his freedom of speech comes a responsibility, to accept the costs of what you say. If what you say makes people think you’re a dick then tough tit mate.

The scariest part of all of this to me is purported liberals, on a liberal site, all cheering on this restriction to the freedom of speech.

What’s got into you people?

@Tim W

So if Mr Gill had called President Obama a “nigger”, say, or Baroness Warsi a “Paki”, would that be cool and groovy with you?

“So if Mr Gill had called President Obama a “nigger”, say, or Baroness Warsi a “Paki”, would that be cool and groovy with you?”

Sigh.

You’re missing my point. Gill is and should be entirely free to call Obama a nigger, Warsi a Paki, me an unreconstructed neo-liberal half wit and you whatever it pleases him to call you.

We, Obama, Warsi, myself, you, as individuals and we, the great British public observing him using these words and descriptions, are similarly entirely free to make up our own minds about Gill and his use of language. Further, to decide whether we want to read any more of his tripe, or even to purchase anything at all from those who would employ the ghastly little fucker.

He has the freedom to speak as he sees fit, we have the freedom to react to what he says as we see fit….and he has to accept our reaction.

The thing being that all of that is us enjoying our freedom, see?

When you bring the law into it you’re reducing that freedom.

So, to give the complete answer to your question: if I was in a room and heard Gill refer to Warsi as a Paki I’d shout at him for having done so. If I were braver (Hah!) I might even have a damn good go at punching him for such disgusting bad manners (and thus breaching all the stuff about no violence etc).

But no, I don’t support the use of the law to tell him that he cannot be an ignorant little shit.

Tim W – basic understanding fail – the PCC is an attempt of the press to maintain its ethical standards. It’s not the law.

If Gill had been prosecuted for a crime, then I would agree with you that his freedom of speech had been infringed unacceptably. However, if he wants to call Clare Balding a dyke he still has every freedom to do so. Just not in the pages of a paper which subscribes to the PCC code.

@Tim W

Isn’t it the point of the PCC that it is specifically and explicitly not “The law”. The government is not prosecuting anyone. The PCC is simply holding the Sunday Times to a set of voluntary principles it has previously signed up for.

My take here:
http://www.robertsharp.co.uk/2010/09/17/derogratory-words/
“if you are not the original subject of an insult, you can’t be the one to reclaim it.”

Oh bugger, I just repeated exactly wot Larry said @15. Apologies, people.

My guess is here is that all of this derives from the fact that Mr Gill is a skillful writer (note that does not mean a good writer, although I actually quite enjoy some of what he writes) and therefore attempts to use rhetorical tricks such as alliteration and rhyming (as in this case) where possible to make his prose more appealing.

That it was gratuitously offensive (I presume from Ms Balding’s reaction – I’m not in her shoes) should however have generated an appology from the paper, unless it felt that the description was neither excessive nor invalid. Good manners cost nothing in such cases, and having to go to the PCC to obtain an appology is a case of silliness by the Sunday Times’. Although reading the original post, did Ms Balding ask the paper for such an appology?

“Tim W – basic understanding fail – the PCC is an attempt of the press to maintain its ethical standards. It’s not the law.”

Fair enough…getting confused with all these people saying that there “should be” statutory regulation of the press.

From Adam Banks on twitter…

AA Gill wrong to call Clare Balding “dyke on a bike – wait till she spots him in a punt…

Seems a bit redundant to have a go at cjcj. He/she was clearly being tongue-in-cheek. Pick your fights innit.

Having said that, I think Balding’s fight was one worth picking – people like Gill get away with stuff like that too easily, and the importance of language is all too often dismissed.

Re 20 – if anyone’s got good photoshop skills, PLEASE make a picture of Gill on a punt!

Always good to see the tory trolls standing up for decency and respect and all that jazz that they are constantly banging on about…….

Oh wait……

they have no problem with calling someone a Dyke. Silly Sally , you forgot tory trolls don’t practice what they preach.

@21

Not so re:cjcjc – the Sunday Times used exactly the same line of argument [@2] in its defense. As someone pointed out, it’s like using NWA to defend your use of the N word.

What a lot of fuss over nothing. She IS a dyke isn’t she? Just like I am straight. If I was called a hetro on the metro I wouldn’t really be able to complain – nor would I want to. Do people who make different life choices ALWAYS have to make such a big deal over someone having a laugh – prick or not AA Gill is entitled to write what he thinks surely. It’s a very old, well used term, get over it, in the scheme of things zzzzzzzzzz

This seems confusing.

Q Is Clare Balding a dyke?

Q Was she riding a bike in the programme?

If the answers to both the above are YES, how can anyone be criticised for describing the programme as being about a “dyke on a bike”.

QED

@24 and @25

I refer you both to my question @13.