The Blairite ‘Red Roar’ site routinely and ineffectually attacks Labour’s leader Jeremy Corbyn, to such an extent it is variously referred to by Labour supporters as the ‘blue squeak’, ‘blue bore’ and even less flattering epithets. Unlike the main left media news sites, it is run anonymously and without regulatory oversight – and has been caught pushing hilariously untrue stories.
But its latest embarrassment involves the theft of someone’s work, rather than a simple lie.
Desperate for material for yet another attack on Corbyn, the site found a video of Jeremy Corbyn talking to an Irish audience about Ireland’s two referendums on the Lisbon Treaty – and claimed it as an ‘exclusive’, complete with its own logo added.
Of course, Corbyn’s points were entirely reasonable and would have resonated with his Irish audience – the Irish were made to have another vote on Lisbon sixteen months after rejecting it the first time. Such facts aren’t relevant to a desperate Labour right.
But the video was not exclusive – nor did the ‘Squeak’ have any right to use it, as its maker quickly pointed out:
The site has not removed the footage and has ignored Ms Geraghty’s complaints which, as she told the SKWAWKBOX this morning, included direct messages.
But the behaviour of the supposedly mainstream media was no better. Numerous press outlets and broadcasters – including the BBC – simply took the Squeak’s pirated footage and recycled it for their own coverage, without bothering to contact Ms Geraghty about it.
Ms Geraghty told the SKWAWKBOX:
[The BBC] didn’t even verify the footage. With all the furore around Russian interference in elections, it’s very strange that British news organisations simply take footage uncritically without verifying it.
As a journalist, I’m fed up with people just nicking my stuff and thinking they can use it. That video’s had over a million views now and where’s the accountability?
I’m getting assistance from the NUJ with this, but I just find it incredibly strange that news organisations just take these things unquestioningly and don’t verify rather than just taking verbatim what an anonymous political site says about it. I’m easy enough to find, but they did no due diligence. How hard can it be? But there was clearly no attempt to verify the footage, let alone ask me for permission to use it.
We have nothing to say on this one.
A BBC spokesperson
The SKWAWKBOX contacted the BBC to ask why it had participated in the unauthorised use of a film-maker’s footage without permission or due diligence. A BBC spokesperson replied:
We have nothing to say on this one.
Ms Geraghty pointed out the impact of the theft of her work in response to a sympathetic comment by a fellow Irish journalist on Twitter:
Readers who wish to view Ms Geraghty’s video of Jeremy Corbyn’s speech legitimately can do so via her Vimeo page here.
SKWAWKBOX comment:
Paula Geraghty makes her living from her work and the theft of it by an anonymous site for mischief-making and clickbait must be intensely frustrating.
But while no better might be expected from an anonymous site as poor as the risible ‘Red Roar’, the behaviour of the BBC and other supposedly-professional media outlets toward a journalist’s intellectual property rights has been nothing short of scandalous.
But the BBC’s arrogant reaction was even worse than its complicity in the original theft. The Corporation’s response was dismissive to an extent that is shocking even for those used to shoddy behaviour and a lack of accountability by the UK’s national broadcaster.
It seems all’s fair in love and war – and especially the Establishment war on Jeremy Corbyn and his policies.
The SKWAWKBOX needs your support. This blog is provided free of charge but depends on the generosity of its readers to be viable. If you can afford to, please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here for a monthly donation via GoCardless. Thanks for your solidarity so this blog can keep bringing you information the Establishment would prefer you not to know about.
If you wish to reblog this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
Was it intentional that the red roar’s logo looks like a rat fighting its way out of a vagina?
Does this mean Blair & Mandelson have fallen out?
Nope. That’s just your mind.
The logo looks like a lion to me.
It’s actually a Rorschach test.
Only Blairites think it looks like a lion.
I do believe you’re right.
Brilliant insight from Jeremy, and should alarm remainers who think that the EU is a bastion of peace in the world, and an end to wars, the American war machine’s ultimate aims are perpetual wars. Just look at their interference in Democratic Venezuela.
Forgive me if I change the subject, but I just want to draw attention to a poll which appeared yesterday in the wikipedia listing – ie an Opinium poll that was conducted ten days before, and which gave the Tories a four point lead. Why would it take ten days before publishing it? Very odd. And there was of course the more recent Opinium poll that put the Tories SEVEN points ahead.
But my main reason for mentioning it is the ‘write-up’ that goes with the poll (for Peole’s Vote) giving the Tories a four point lead, and how totally disingenuous it is (click on the link in the second column and it brings it up). They make much of how a couple of weeks prior to the poll giving the Tories a seven point lead, a poll they did had Labour three points ahead……. in other words, there has been a ten point swing to the Tories bla, bla, bla. But they conveniently omit to mention the Survation poll conducted at the same time which gave Labour a one point lead.
And the very fact that the write-up for the poll conducted for People’s Vote MENTIONS the later poll giving the Tories a seven point lead, obviously means it was written afterwards!
Conclusion: Opinium is a weapon of the Establishment, as is yougov of course. And they are being used to their full extent at the moment to subvert democracy with manufactured and phoney poll results.
The link to the wikipedia listings:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election
“And they are being used to their full extent at the moment to subvert democracy with manufactured and phoney poll results.”
Along with those who conspire in disseminating the falsehood(s), such as Isabel Oakeshott and Fiona Bruce (on QT), and Andrea Leadsom (in an interview on Channel 4 News), and Anna Soubrey and another Tory MP (during the No Confidence debate/vote), and the MSM of course, and the right-wing press in particular.
And just one last point: If you look through the wikipedia poll listings during the course of the past two years, you will see that on average, there is a yougov poll conducted for The Times about every seven or eight days (apart from over the Christmas periods), and yet since the yougov poll putting the Tories five points ahead conducted on the 13-14th of January (exactly a week after the one that had “Labour six points behind”), there hasn’t been another yougov/Times poll. THAT in itself is very odd, to say the least. But given the recent Opinium poll putting the Tories SEVEN points ahead, I can’t help wondering if the next poll to be published will be another yougov/Times poll giving the Tories a six or seven point lead, which of course the ‘pundits’ can then claim to show that JC and the LP are doing badly in the polls – ie there’s now been TWO polls in succesion putting the Tories “way ahead” of Labour. So there’s no doubt about it!
As someone once said, polls (and political polls especially) aren’t so much to GAUGE public opinion, but to SHAPE it.
Further to Jeremy’s talk here is a panel from November 2018 in Galway organised by Irish MEP Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan focussed around diminishing Irish neutrality, PESCO and EU military Union.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5115&v=fqmG24IKa6Y
EU military Union is a major step towards full EU Federalisation and European imperial entity serving the wealthy private vested interest complex including the war industry that lives off death and destruction. Why are these issues not debated fully in Parliament and in the media? UK military is tied in via Franco British treaties signed under Cameron. Will UK armed forces be under sovereign British democratic control or control of unelected EU reps in future?
https://www.ukcolumn.org/series/eu-military-unification
Those were the days! When Jeremy used to side with the working class against the European Union, instead of siding with the European Union against the working class!
Apalling coverage too by BBC re Venezeula, regurgitating US Govt
Right Wing propaganda?
tonight by Orla what’s her name- no mention of what 20 years of US undermining and sanctions.
And drugs, food, raw materials effected.
And now it seems its accept little and freedom and Venezuelian democratic control of your country, or our food aid, imperialism and we steal your country and oil.
So much for holding Truth to Power?
‘The World is a darker place.
When Barbarians they strut the Earth.
Unite diverse working people.
You create everything of worth.’
The Right Wing Barbarians depend on billions of you turning up for work tomorrow.
Their’s is the Real Dependency Culture.
Left wing democratic socialism offers hope!