Ordinary Gweilo

George Adams has a marvellously batty conspiracy theory about Peter Gordon, Nury Vittachi and IceRed. Last time he took it out for a spin, the central hypothesis was that Peter Gordon was the owner of IceRed and was using this power to supress any criticism of Nury (and presumably to be beastly to George into the bargain). It all went a bit pear-shaped when it was pointed out that Peter Gordon was nothing more significant than the moderator of the Books forum, and George was left looking slightly foolish.

Undeterred by this setback, he’s back with a new and improved (and equally mad) theory. Actually, it’s much the same as before, but Steve Vines has been added to the mix, and Peter Gordon is now accused of using his power as moderator of “the widely-read Media/Journalism forum” to censor comments if they criticize any of his chums. He’s not, it isn’t. Move along, please, there’s nothing to see here.

George might like to imagine that his inane ramblings in this forum are widely read, but you only have to spend a few minutes glancing through the threads to see that this is duller than even the dullest blog. Certainly it is livelier than the NTSCMP forum, but that’s not saying very much – it’s nothing more than a handful of journalists gossiping about other journalists, a few rumours about who is going to be sacked, and George Adams making a fool of himself.

George presumably likes it on IceRed because people take notice of him. He may be a big fish there, but it’s an extremely small pond with very few signs of intelligent life. Also, Peter Gordon still isn’t the moderator of the media/journalism forum, and therefore isn’t censoring anything. The dull truth (something I know all about) is that IceRed admin are deleting threads that might create legal problems.

The Internet, is of course just the place for crackpot conspiracy theories. Anyone can throw up a website and fill it with their mad ideas – another one of my favourites is here. The only puzzling thing, I suppose, is that George thinks bloggers are a waste of valuable Internet bandwidth, whereas IceRed and his own mix of jokes and conspiracy theories are much more worthwhile. Not sure I totally agree, but then I would say that, wouldn’t I.

Meanwhile, Phil got extremely upset by one of George’s unfunny photoshop “jokes” – this one was a picture of Ken Bigley with a caption about SCMP journalist Kevin Sinclair. Predictably, Phil’s comments gave George something to write about, and an opportunity to go back on the attack, so he was presumably satisfied with his day’s work. Maybe there was an incredibly funny joke or some biting satire that somehow went over my head, but if George was doing this merely to get attention then it’s all a bit pathetic and desperate.

The truth is that the attacks on the SCMP have become incredibly lame. George must yearn for the days when the editor of that newspaper replied to his emails and insiders gave him gossip he could use. As an aside, I recently read Jonathon Fenby’s book about – well, about something or other – and discovered that he really did mention George only twice, even though the NTSCMP website would have you believe that he one of the central characters in the book. Now George is reduced to taking swipes at individual Post journalists (first Kevin Sinclair, then John Dykes) and re-printing complaints from readers about the quality of the horse racing tips. Cutting edge stuff, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Anyway, who really cares about the South China Morning Post? It’s an English language newspaper in an overwhelmingly Chinese city, with a circulation of little more than 100,000 and very little influence. Hey, look – it’s owned by a businessman who wants to curry favour with the government in Beijing (meet the new boss, same as the old boss). Yawn, yawn.

But is there a newspaper anywhere in the world that is truly independent and objective? Probably not. If you want to know what is really happening in Hong Kong or China (or anywhere else) there are plenty of ways finding out – no-one needs to rely on what is written in their local newspaper any more. I’ve heard that some people even read blogs instead of dreary old newsprint.

Maybe the SCMP isn’t as good as it once was, but then what is? The Times has never been the same since they started printing news on the front page, but I think most people have got over that disappointment. Certainly you don’t find websites dedicated to complaining about how The Times has declined since Rupert Murdoch acquired it. People just get on with their lives and buy other newspapers, or get their news from the radio or TV or those darned Internets.