Suzanne Harrington: Pile-on on Arday is not what newspapers are for

Professor Arday incurred the kind of media ire usually reserved for paedophiles.

The late Jason Arday was found dead at his home earlier this month. 

It’d be reasonable to assume that the purpose of newspapers — in whatever format, digital or old-school — is twofold: To inform and to entertain.

We read the news section to learn about who is doing what and where and why, and we read the other sections to see what people are up to socially and culturally. Events and trends, national and international.

Professor Jason Arday, the UK academic, was found dead at his home, aged 41, after being subjected to weeks of relentless media pile-on.

His crime? Allegations of plagiarism, for which he had been previously fully exonerated.

Yet Prof Arday incurred the kind of media ire usually reserved for paedophiles; right-wing columnists were particularly outraged a black autistic man who did not have a traditional academic background was given a post at Cambridge. Breached its hallowed boundaries.

It’s been reported British newspapers — mostly broadsheets — published 249 articles about him in 22 days. Professor Arday resigned on August 5 and was dead by August 14. 

This was not even a tabloid-driven scandal, lacking the usual lurid ingredients of sex, drugs, cash, celebrity, royalty, reality television; this pile-on was led by ‘respectable’ journalists, outraged that someone who did not fit the established mould of Cambridge academic should have bypassed their gate-keeping. They piled on for clicks — and got them.

Simon Baron-Cohen, Cambridge’s leading autism expert, was worried enough to intervene: “I’m very concerned about the impact of media coverage on Professor Jason Arday who is autistic… [and] cleared of any academic misconduct following a rigorous investigation.” 

Professor Baron-Cohen wrote how the “relentless bullying of a vulnerable autistic man raises safeguarding issues”, and how it was “time to stop”. It didn’t, with articles still being pumped out like sewage from a burst pipe, even on the day Professor Arday died.

This is not what newspapers are for. While liars, rapists, thieves, and crooks remain in positions of unimaginable power, media outlets are used to divert scrutiny from their own myriad deeds and misdeeds. Quick, create scapegoats. Tiny harmless minorities like trans people? Release the press hounds.

A black autistic man deemed unsuitable for a top academic institution? Kick him to death. Any progressive politician not parroting the dictated narrative? Deride them as terrorist supporters, antisemites, all-out lunatics. Create division. Stir hatred.

A prominent black hate-figure is due to return to the UK shortly. While Meghan Markle could not reasonably be described as vulnerable, she has nevertheless been on the receiving end of that burst sewage pipe of hate from the British media for years now. 

The Yoko Ono of the current batch of royals, she has long been charged with breaking up the band — never mind the band has been toxically fractured since, I don’t know, the days of Henry VIII.

Far easier to blame a woman, even better if she’s black — the press-created term Megxit conveniently rhyming with another populist idea of immense stupidity. Her fondness for avocados led to Meghan being accused by the UK media of human rights abuses, fuelling environmental destruction, and funding organised crime. 

That’s all they could get on her — avocados. And now she’s returning to the UK with her husband and children, where the press will be lying in wait with their lies and hate. Good luck, love.

They’re barbarians.