Tabloid journalism: easiest job in the world

There's a story on The Mirror's website at the moment about Wednesday's Leona incident. I don't wish to comment again on poor Leona and her puffy face (my "eye witness" joke was more than enough) - but I do wish to draw your attention to the final line in the aforementioned Mirror story. And I quote:

"Wow. What a twat."

There are so many things wrong with this, it's hard to know where to start. Actually it's not that hard.

1. I'll start by pointing out that The Mirror is a national newspaper which had a circulation of 1.5 million in 2008 (yes I looked it up on Google - this makes my research skills officially 1 million times better than those of the Mirror, but I'll write more about that some other day). A newspaper with such influence, and the website associated with it, have a duty to employ better writers than this, and to make sure they're doing a better job of it than you or I could.

2. Anyone who punches anyone in the face without provocation is, by definition, a twat. We don't need to be told this. If the newspaper in question thinks we need to be told, it clearly has a very low opinion of its readership.

3. That final line makes it obvious that whoever wrote it got to the end of his or her report and thought "I don't think I've expressed my opinion well enough - how do I make it clear that I believe this man is a twat? Oh hang on, I've thought of something..." If anyone has so little confidence in their ability to get a point across that they need to resort to ending any article with "What a twat", they should not be paid to write.

4. Swearing?! Where poor little kiddies could be exposed to it, with their delicate ears? If Russell Brand did that, The Mirror would be calling for his penis on a stick.

I'm not saying I could do much better, but I'm a blogger and some-time writer/editor of web copy and whatnot, not a professional journalist writing for a national newspaper.

I will continue unleashing my tabloid-aimed vitriol at a later date. In the meantime, I will seek out the writer of this article (no byline, although the video clip is credited to Zoe Griffin) and punch them square in the face. Call me a twat, I don't care.