PLUCKY CARIEN DU PLESSIS - ONLY ONE OF FOUR ATTACKED JOURNALISTS NOT IN HIDING

Dear Journalists everywhere,

Carien du Plessis

          It’s pathetic when journalists, who are in the business of holding other people to account can’t take it when the roles are reversed.

          Like so many people in different walks of life they often fail dismally when it comes to practising what they preach when they are cornered. You would think that as judges of our morals they would set a higher standard than this.

          They should all be man enough (sorry to a lot of you about that man reference but I can’t think of a better way of putting it) to take criticism if they are in the reporting business.

          After I took journalists Carien du Plessis, Rebecca Davies, Martin Hatcheul and Louise Marsland to task for something they Tweeted, all of them except Carien ducked for cover behind a Twitter BLOCK. They presumably felt safe in their chicken runs believing that this would ensure there was no longer a danger of me getting at them for anything they tweeted.

          It wasn’t as though I had attacked them personally or used any troll like language to malign them.

           Their reprisal was the equivalent of a newspaper cancelling the subscription of someone who disagreed with its policy.

          All except Marsland were mentioned in various posts of mine for using vulgar language on Twitter (women's sweary wall). 
I felt that as this would not normally be allowed in any of the publications they write for it was not in keeping with the way journalists as public figures should behave on an open platform like the internet.

          Carien, the City Press’ senior political reporter, was the exception in that she was big enough to just cut out the bad language and do nothing to prevent me monitoring her future Tweets. Well done Carien that’s how all journalists with any backbone should behave.

          Davis the built in dictionary scribe writes for the online paper The Daily Maverick. After my post about her she justified her language in a Maverick article (Telling it like it isn't) and subsequently closed the door to me on her Twitter account.

DAVIS HIDING IN HER CHICKEN RUN

          Unlike any of the others Hatchuel (Top Sweary Man), a Knysna freelance, directed one of his uncouth Tweets at me personally. Here it is.

          In Marsland’s case (Mommy Blog)I merely disapproved of the stance she took against Pick n Pay on Twitter and in Bizcommunity.com. The supermarket group earned her ire when it asked her to remove her tweet which gave the link to Celeste Barlow’s extremely vulgar post about its very successful Stikeez promotion.

Journo on the run

          Marsland the editor of Bizcommunity.com is a South African 25-year media veteran who claims to have been an “influential journalist, editor, columnist and public speaker.” So with that kind of background you wouldn’t have thought that she would have been so easily scared of what I might do if I was allowed to access any more of her tweets.

          Journalists are quick to go crying into print if some government or other body threatens their freedom of expression. But when this very freedom turns against them personally it can be a completely different story as this post so clearly illustrates.

          Reporting in the Maverick on the decision of Media 24, South Africa’s largest online news publisher, to cease accepting reader’s comments Davis wrote: “The announcement has already polarised opinion, with some perceiving it as part of a sinister slide towards a public discourse where only certain opinions are judged ‘correct’ enough to be aired.”

          By blocking me isn’t this exactly what these journalists are doing?

          We all make mistakes Carien (except yours truly of course), but it’s the way we deal with them afterwards that shows our true character. And this is where your score was sky high.

          Well done again Carien. You certainly showed your colleagues how to deal with criticism with courage and dignity.

          Yours critically,

          Jon, Chairman of the Keep Twitter Clean Society. 

          

MARTIN HATCHUEL IS NUMBER ONE ON MEN'S SWEARY WALL OF SHAME

Dear Sweary Females,

Martin Hatchuel's BIG JOKE

My apologies to you all. When I started this for Women,  
Sweary Women's Wall of Shame

I said that I had yet to come across
any South African men using the 
same kind of vulgar language.

          Well I now have to eat my words by starting a Sweary Men’s Wall of Shame.

          The person who prompted me to do this is none other than a freelance journalist who at the age of 59 should know better, especially as he lists as his clients various tourist organisations; hotels; lodges and even the Cango Caves on South Africa’s scenic Garden Route

          I’m sure they would be delighted to learn that Knysna based Martin Hatchuel has such a picturesque vocabulary at his command that he has just become NUMBER ONE on my new Wall.

          His Apple iPhone6 set him on a Twitter tirade of filth with blasphemy thrown in for a bit of variety.

          Then when I came into the picture warning him that I was thinking of starting a Sweary Wall of Shame for Men similar to the one I have for women, he replied with the same kind of vulgar language that had up to that stage only been applied to Apple.  

          
          Here’s Martin at his Sweary Best.

         
            It couldn't be could it that Martin's technology had failed rather than Apple's?

       
          This is what Martin tells us about himself. "Could anyone be better suited to writing about tourism?" he asks. With his colourful language he seems perfect for the job.
          What's more he claims to have once written a "po-faced paper" called "Managing Perceptions: The Care and Feeding of the Media," which he delivered at a Tourism Law and Management seminar.
          What kind of perception does he think his free use of four-letter words on Twitter creates. It makes him out to be a guttersnipe type character.

          Do you want somebody like this promoting tourism in your area?
          Anyway this is what happened when I came on the scene.

CHARMING

BELOW IS A LIST OF SOME OF HIS CLIENTS.
I WONDER IF THEY KNOW THEY ARE IN
SUCH GOOD COMPANY?

             *Apart from Martin's foul language his Client list (above) on his 'This tourism week' blog is suspect. I contacted a small sample and this was the result: Peter Wallington Chairman of

Plettenberg Bay Tourism said Martin had not worked for them for the last two years. He refused to comment on Martin's foul language or to say whether or not his organisation was happy to be listed as one of Martin's clients. Wallington is a former journalist so perhaps this accounted for his reluctance to discuss the activities of another one.
         Esther de Villiers Editor of  CXPRESS, a free Garden Route community paper said Martin should not have her paper on his client list as he "last wrote a column for us many, many moons ago." She added that social media left her "rather cold" particularly because of the "forum it creates for users of all manner of sub-standard language."
             Here is another of Martin's attention seeking rough comments from Twitter.

         And finally he sums up his own behavior perfectly with this Tweet.

        Regards,
        Jon, Chairman of the Keep Twitter Clean Society 
        (For those who don't know the test is whether 
        you would use the same language in front of
        people you do business with; your employer; 
        your wife, if you have one and small children).