Michael White's sneering is low grade journalism

I've never met Michael White, political correspondent for the Guardian - despite my best efforts.

Last year, when I first suggested that Westminster needed radical reform, rather than ask me why I might have come to think that, he wrote sneeringly about me.  Instead of refuting anything I'd actually said, he tried to belittle, boasting how he "wouldn't recognise 36-year-old Carswell, whose experience of speakerships goes back as far as 2005".  

Does the fact that the political editor of the Guardian can't recognise an MP who's worked in the same building as him for four years, make me look bad or him?  You decide.  I certainly recognise him.

I then sent Mr White a couple of polite emails suggesting, you know, what with him being a political editor, me being an MP, both of us being in Westminster, perhaps I could buy him a coffee and explain why I'd come to the view that Westminster isn't working?  I was particularly keen to discuss with him some of the changes that the internet will bring to politics. Still nothing.  Perhaps his server was down that day.

One thing White had very specifically tried to mock me for back then was my suggestion that YouTube was going to change the way we do politics.  Indeed, he tried to parody what I'd said, writing Carswell had a lot of experience "by YouTube standards, I mean, like the stone age, you know". 

Ironically, today he tries the same sneering approach to belittle the fact over a million people watched Daniel Hannan take on Gordon Brown on ... um, like .. I mean, YouTube.

Once again, he resorts to sneering, dismissing Hannan as "horribly priggish ... a daft wee boy". 

This is pretty low grade journalism.  Perhaps if White was a little less grand, he'd have seen how YouTube was going to change things, and be able to make more insightful, and less snide, comment about it.

UPDATE:  For some amusement, do read the comments posted on Michael White's own site about his absurd article; "sneering", "fuddy duddy", "out of touch", "condescending", "cheap political point scoring rather than informed opinion and comment".  And there's hundreds of them - more than for anything else the fellow's written.   

Keeping on sneering, Mr White.

UPDATE:  1,242,597 have seen the Dan Hannan speech so far.  Still sneering, Mr White?

UPDATE:  374  411 overwhelmingly critical comments have now been posted on Michael White's site.    

Posted on 27 March 2009 by Douglas Carswell

Comments

Michael White is a) a Grauniad journalist and hence an idiot and b) a political journalist and hence wedded to the <i>status quo</i>.

He doesn't want to see the boat rocked.

Posted on 27 March 2009 14:50 by Obnoxio The Clown

Yet a perfect example of 'quality journalism'!

With both the NUJ and the Newspaper Society bemoaning the problems with 'quality journalism', might not a raising of recruitment standards negate the deficit in both 'quality and 'journalism' that is so obviously lacking today?

Posted on 27 March 2009 14:52 by WitteringsFromWitney

If I were a member of the Journalist's Guild, I'd be pretty scared of it losing its monopoly, too.

Posted on 27 March 2009 15:32 by Ian B

ps - I have added my 'tuppence worth' on my blog too!

Posted on 27 March 2009 15:52 by WitteringsFromWitney

You dared to insult the status quo. You're lucky they didn't accuse you of "hate crimes."

Posted on 27 March 2009 16:02 by Roger Pearse

More of White's sneering here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2r5d2Ccpo3I

Posted on 27 March 2009 16:10 by Hugo

I've been pretty shocked by the reaction from Labour and the more blinkered members of its (media) constituency to what was, really, no more than a wonderful piece of timely oratory.

Do they really not understand that their ridiculous ad hominems and pretty unsavoury, inward-looking overreactions (or should that be 'underreactions' in the case of the left-leaning media) just looks like pure, unadulterated, died-in-the-wool snobbery to a clued-up body politic? Unbelievable.

Hannan's speech touched a chord, right enough. Maybe it's obvious but I'll say it anyway: it's the desperate responses of the government and some of its more unpleasant champions to the speech's popularity that's done them the most harm, I reckon, and not the speech itself.

It's possible eventually it'll dawn on them, assuming they can get past their own, jurassic, unedifying, soul-destroying prejudice.

I wouldn't hold my breath on that one, though. Maybe that's a good thing.

Posted on 27 March 2009 23:24 by Jon Lishman

We've been keeping an eye on Michael White for years and have yet to find him anything but supercilious, offensive and totally one-eyed. It's good that everybody's waking up to him and Sky and the BBC use him much less often. Well done on pricking his bubble!
Dan Hannan's short speech was the most exhilharating political event of recent times.



I love concise punchy language like this with a bit of flowery stuff (the nautical references) thrown in for contrast.
Nobody has failed to get his message and - as DH has said - it hit the spot because so many have waited for so long to hear Brown get what he deserves in a polite but analytical and ruthless way! The regular use of 'Prime Minister' is masterly

Posted on 27 March 2009 23:45 by THE ESSEX BOYS

The working class are on the move.

Come the glorious day brothers and sisters come the revolution, Michael White, Polly Tonybee, George Monbiot you are first against the wall !!!
Power to the people

Posted on 31 March 2009 17:48 by Woolfie

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