Dan Wootton Dismisses Norway Carnage Because it’s “a Day Old”
If you don’t know who Dan Wootton is, I regret to be the one to bring his existence to your attention. He’s the former showbiz editor for the thankfully euthanized News of the World.
You will of course be aware that two major news stories broke over the weekend. The heinous, calculated and long time in the planning massacre of some 80 people in Norway by Anders Behring Breivik, and Amy Winehouse’s death.
When Amy’s death started trending on Twitter I turned to the BBC News channel and Sky News for validation. Both were reporting the unfolding developments in the Norwegian tragedy and after a while, BBC News mentioned they were getting reports surrounding the death of Amy Winehouse. Eventually both news channels got reporters to Amy’s flat in Camden and covered the story comprehensively, giving us what they knew. However, the lead story on both channels was quite clearly, and rightly, the mass killings in Norway.
Dan Wootton and his band of celeb junkies weren’t happy with this and made their disatisfaction clear. It was at that point that Twitter blew up and hurled the greatest levels of abuse I’ve seen yet at him.
The most telling tweet he sent was the one where he says “I am sad because I know we would have done the story real justice.”
The truly bizarre thing is that just hours before he had tweeted about the horror of the Norway atrocity. So it seems he just felt that it wasn’t that important a “story.” Have a look and make your own mind up.
And those are just the tweets I could publish.What do you think?
For more about this story read Annie Eaves’ brilliant piece on the subject
About Uche Chukwu | All Posts | Website | Twitter | Contact
An opinionated, social commentator and cultural critic with something to say about everything. Usually polemic and not always well thought through. Something of an insensitive, hypocritical contradiction of altruistic folly, he observes what is wrong with society, snears at, examines and dissects it then walks away in disgust, offering little by way of solution. Believes the world needn't actually change, and dumbing down is unnecessary, we just need to find a way to eradicate the really stupid. He's part of the problem.
I’ve enjoyed this post! I follow this celeb arse-licker just for the morbid fascination of him… kind of like a guide to what I do not want to be like as a journo. I’m glad the news broadcasters lead with the Norway tragedy.
Dan is right….if people find celebrity more important than harsh reality. The newspaper, magazine and web market’s have a load of vacuous titles that sell very, very well indeed, that may include one (perhaps self induced death) is more important than a massacre.
We live in very interesting times.
I blogged on this too. As you rightly pointed out, he said he was upset about Norway earlier. If any of the people flinging abuse at Wootton have tweeted about anything else since then, does that mean they no longer care about Norway either? The Twitter lynch-mob can’t accept that anyone can have more than 140 characters-worth of opinions or that two stories can be big at the same time.
I reckon that a Sunday paper splashing Amy would sell more than a similar paper splashing a second day of Norway. Whose fault would that be? The people buying the papers, not the journalists.