Tony = Phony

(As in Blair, or Soprano; actually, keep it at Blair so as not to piss off the Italian Americans as well as the American Americans.)

Or:

Blair = Flair
Blair = Care
Blair = Blah

Or:

Response = Nonce

Or:

Rhyme = Crime

What "bigger SCUM" means I'm not entirely sure, but it's a common word round here that describes anything which doesn't fit into the norm. Terrorist scum, paedofile scum... it's a very scummy word.

What do you actually mean by "bigger SCUM"? And why was the scum (assuming you're not using it as an acronym) capitalised? To shock, to illustrate, illuminate, highlight the truth? What is the truth?

Anyway, I realise it's important to note that, if I were to align myself with either of those two, it'd be the journalist, at least in his intent. As far as descriptive, to-the-point responses go, I'd fully repeat what the paedofile exclaims: "You are a shit-haaaause!"

I think this probably sums up the reporter and all his cringe-worthy, hyperbolic fuck-faced-ness; hopefully, the absurdity in the reportage is lucid enough - if it isn't, let's lament how post-modernity has blinded us truly and fully:

"And even wrote them love letters which are [looking at the piece of paper in his hand, presumably the love letters themselves!] too sick to read out to You."

I capitalise "You" for a reason; the exclusion of this sentence, and the false and vulgar aspiration for knowledge and truth on his part, makes me want to vomit, or ejaculate, or both.

Are those props in his hands really Geoffrey Leonard's love letters, and the boys' police statements? I very much doubt it. It's manipulative to the highest degree; I see it no more so than a Michael Moore documentary... only this is more in line with the norm, and hence more excusable, I suppose. Not for me; I agree both with Fahrenheit 9/11's cause and the Fight against Paedofilia (if there even is one), but this is plain irresponsible reportage, and it's a sad state of affairs when stuff like this is shown so as to be the sort of band-wagon-jumping, "Yee-haw!" kind of circus.

The reporter asks, "Would you like to say sorry?" which is a fucking joke, surely.

The violence of journalism is far more subtle than the violation of little boys, but it's just as vulgar, and just as manipulative; in fact, it is more so, in that at least the effects of paedofilia are known to (that is, felt by) the victim; journalism manipulates so as to cover its own traces. Consumption of the news, of media of all kinds, is on the whole (on the whole being outside of academic practice or other, more engaged concerns) a ridiculously passive thing. We're under the impression (illusion, for that is the power of the Media) that we're dependent on it. It's like eating and eating and eating, without ever realising how obese you're becoming.

In this respect it is like the Church - and it is no coincidence that journalism of this sort is a symptom of the Western Syndrome: it is synonymous with the same society on which Christianity feeds, in its reductive and irresponsible manipulation of the Masses.