Benedict Cooper

Freelance journalist | @guardian @NewStatesman @DailyMirror @Telegraph @thetimes @PrivateEyeNews @PoliticsHome | Orwell Society press officer | NUJ branch chair

[Benedict Cooper @Ben_JS_Cooper]

Introducing my substack, Behind the Wire, with my take on Reform UK vs Nottingham Post (and democracy). Behind the Wire is about fighting for journalism, and journalists, in the face of the many dire threats and pressures the industry is under today. https://t.co/yLfHAVaIvw

[Benedict Cooper @Ben_JS_Cooper]

@MrsEmmaWebber Like so many in Nottingham, I am painfully aware of what tomorrow means, and always will be. This is my own small gesture; my recollections on the dreadful attacks, and how in the days that followed, Nottingham tried to help bear your unimaginable grief. https://t.co/1mCCgXG2Y7

[Benedict Cooper @Ben_JS_Cooper]

@SarcasticForest I have a feeling they’ll all be over-hydrated if they stop for a drink every time Bosnia score

[Benedict Cooper @Ben_JS_Cooper]

https://t.co/KoyuOg6UtT

[Benedict Cooper @Ben_JS_Cooper]

“Why don’t you just get out of journalism?”

It’s a question I’m hearing these days, but not yet asking myself. Even in the darkest hours.

No l'm not ready to give up yet.
But it is getting harder and harder.

Some personal notes on my Substack. Link below.
#journalism

[Benedict Cooper @Ben_JS_Cooper]

@benjaminbutter Only if your primary concern is medium over content. This is pejoratively dismissing one of the most respected political journalists in Britain as a 'former', and 'legacy' (something you leave after you die) because his focus is the core subject, not the tech that carries it.

[Benedict Cooper @Ben_JS_Cooper]

@DPJHodges Own worst enemy, or placed in a permanently impossible position; lynched by all sides no matter what it says or does. The left claims the BBC is a conservative (or far right) propaganda machine, the right claims it is a den of wokeness. Who is correct?

[Benedict Cooper @Ben_JS_Cooper]

@DPJHodges I genuinely had you down as an objective journalist guided by scrutiny & fact, not a team writer. It's so disappointing. Would you as a journalist reveal a truth Team Burnham you would rather you didn't? Or are you just supporting your man? If it's the latter fine, but be honest.

[Benedict Cooper @Ben_JS_Cooper]

@DPJHodges How quickly all the cynicism and hyper-scrutiny of every syllable, gesture, and glitch - entirely arguable as journalistic scrutiny - is out, and it’s all benefit-of-the-doubt, glowing filter, ‘You know what, this Burnham chap’s pretty good actually, down with Restore and Reform’

[Benedict Cooper @Ben_JS_Cooper]

Josh Simons led a plot to investigate and then trash the reputations of @thetimes journalists including @Gabriel_Pogrund, for having the audacity to look into undeclared donations to Labour Together. Andy Burnham's going to reward Simons with a top job. https://t.co/EVcEyrnzxf

[Kitty Donaldson @kitty_donaldson]

NEW: Andy Burnham ‘to reward’ Josh Simons with No 10 job, Labour sources claim

https://t.co/DGNzt5gE9o

[Benedict Cooper @Ben_JS_Cooper]

@aboutceltic This is starting to feel like watching the Zapruder film

[Benedict Cooper @Ben_JS_Cooper]

@DanNeidle ‘Tribal truthism’ is one of the most egregious aspects of political discourse in the social media age; factions simply dismiss plain and proven critical truths as smears, then excuse the exact actions that they would condemn in the most rabid terms were they committed by another.

[Benedict Cooper @Ben_JS_Cooper]

@OzKaterji 4. Ask supporters if they would criticise politicians of other parties for the precise same thing Polanski (formerly Corbyn) did… silence.

[Benedict Cooper @Ben_JS_Cooper]

@BenedictSpence It’s the Corbyn syndrome. Leader says something stupid. Journalists quote/broadcast stupid comments. Mob attacks media for “smearing” leader.

[Benedict Cooper @Ben_JS_Cooper]

This is the same look I give my washing machine when it’s finished the wash I told it to do.

[Benedict Cooper @Ben_JS_Cooper]

@IainDale Greens and Labour left today: “It doesn’t make sense, we’ve spent years calling them thick racist flag-shaggers, why aren’t they voting for us?”

[Benedict Cooper @Ben_JS_Cooper]

@ZoeJardiniere A huge national surge to Reform is a sign the country is moving to the left?

[Benedict Cooper @Ben_JS_Cooper]

@NYCMayor "There is no place for...": a phrase used solely following an incident which proves beyond any doubt that there absolutely is a place for it.

[Benedict Cooper @Ben_JS_Cooper]

@OzKaterji We’ve see every trick in the bag of left wing/Green racism this week: downplaying the seriousness, refusing to acknowledge the antisemitic element, or the pattern; attacking people for sympathising with Jews, or just simply shrugging and openly not caring. Revolting.

[Benedict Cooper @Ben_JS_Cooper]

@2jewsonthenews I truly believe there’s a gleeful pride in *not* showing solidarity, wilfully in contrast to all other minorities. The language of the left is replete with tricks to obliquely undermine incidents of antisemitism, blame (Jewish) victims, degrade the Holocaust. It’s deliberate.

[Benedict Cooper @Ben_JS_Cooper]

@ZoeJardiniere When all this bluster is over, one fact will stand for the record: a terrorist stabbed two Jewish men on the streets of London and there were those, including the leader of a political party, whose instinct was to side with the terrorist and criticise the police who stopped him.