Blunkettgate: Is It Because He Is Not Russian?

'@gaystarnews and @pinknews both miss the big story of the day again. Too busy writing rubbish about Russia? http://t.co/4ZlugCaWfe
— Read Fagburn.com  (@Fagburn) September 24, 2013

@benjamincohen @pinknews If a Russian politician had said this it'd be a massive story for you!
— Read Fagburn.com  (@Fagburn) September 24, 2013

Have a look through Pink News' index of recent Russian stories they've thought newsworthy and compare and contrast.
If a minor Moscow local councillor stubbed his toe and said "Bugger!" it'd be a huge scandal in gaymedialand.
All together now; "THIS IS EXACTLY HOW HITLER STARTED!"

PS I respect Ben Cohen for how he takes - and considers - criticisms of Pink News. Makes a change from those gay hacks with massive egos who BLOCK! you on Twitter at the slightest perceived slight.

• If You Masturbate To This, Then Your Children Will Be Next - an excellent blogpost by nyebaron.

Telegraph/Mail: Jesus Christ!

The BBC is facing controversy over an Easter message which likens the treatment of gay people in Britain to the crucifixion of Christ. 

Benjamin Cohen, the founder of a the gay publisher PinkNews, will tell Radio 4 listeners in a talk to be broadcast this week that, just like homosexual people, Jesus was punished “for something he couldn't help”.

He will directly compare the sense of “abandonment” felt by people who come out as gay to being on a cross and speaks about how much gay men have in common with Jesus.

And in a commentary ahead of the broadcast, he also likens the treatment of young gay people by some churches and religious groups to Jesus’s trial in front of the High Priest when he was condemned to death and handed over to the Romans.

Mr Cohen, a former Channel 4 News correspondent and founder and the online gay marriage campaign Out4Marriage, makes the comparison in one of Radio 4’s “Lent talk” slots....

Daily Telegraph.

All sounds quite reasonable to me.
The Telegraph online has also published an article on this by Ben.
Though in the interests of balance found two Christian loons to be outraged.
Andrea Williams, the director of Christian Concern, somewhat predictably, says it's "blasphemous."
“Jesus loves everyone but his message to homosexual community is to turn away from their previous path.
“The BBC panders to a liberal, politically correct agenda and fails to take the opportunity to explore and educate its listeners about the true meaning of Lent and Easter.”
Ben is just one of six contributors to the Lent Week series, most do just that, but why bother with facts? 
As a Radio 4 fan and anti-theist I imagine I'll be turning those ones off. 
The retired Bishop of Rochester chipped in with; “Of course there are things about us that we feel we can’t help but by God’s grace he can help us to live in a way that is obedient to him and his word.”
One wonders how many non-retired church ministers they asked to be outraged first - probably best to keep your mouths shut til this Cardinal O'Brien thing blows over, eh?
The Mail also thought they'd give Andrea Miller a call (their old go-to-guy for a rabid anti-gay quote Stephen Green of Christian Voice must be on their shit list these days).
She still felt it was "blasphemous".
Blasphemy and buggery by the BBC - unsurprisingly many online Mail readers have gone HOLY BATSHIT MENTAL!

Liam Fox & Adam Werritty: Tomorrow's News Today!

The second most read story on Pink News this Friday evening has been this one about Liam Fox.
It was written by publisher Benjamin Cohen and dates from 2005!
Pink News has not written about the current scandale.
Well, why would they?
No-one would have sent them a press release about it, and it won't come up if you type "gay" into Google News.
How interesting - and how very sad - that many of Pink News readers know what the biggest "gay story" of the day is, but the people writing PN don't have a fucking clue.
Fagburn has no idea if they are actually fucking, but the - often homophobic - chatter on, say Guido Fawkes, makes it a story.
Didn't this happen last year with the William Hague-Christopher Myers story?
Not a word on Pink News all week while it was the talk of Westminster.
Then a piece suddenly appeared over the weekend attributed to "Staff Writer" (Ben Cohen, presumably).
Why don't you hire a journalist, Ben?
Someone who knows what's going on.
And who isn't so clueless they can't see a gay subtext to a story?
You shouldn't have to do Jessica Geen's job for her.
It's an insult to your (far better-informed) readers.

Liam Fox: And His Best Man

"And former flatmate..."
Liam Fox and Adam Werritty look like being this year's William Hague and Chris Myers.
Anyone else remember when Liam Fox was "romantically linked" with Natalie Imbruglia?
I wonder what Dr Fox thinks about gay marriage?
Oh what a tangled web these Tories weave.

Pink News: Pink Press Threat!

Pink News founder Benjamin Cohen talks to Press Gazette about the future of the gay news website.
He says it has only one full-time staff member - which was pretty obvious - costs £30,000 a year to run, and makes "a tidy profit".
"Pink News will face a series of changes in the next six months, Cohen says, which will include a relaunch and could involve a change to the ownership structure.
"Cohen says he had just begun “exploring the market” and considering a range of options for the development of Pink News; including selling the site, raising capital to buy another publication or a merger."
Hmm...
Fagburn offers Pink News some business advice for free, gratis - Pink News has become a joke, so concentrate on making it better, a lot better.
Stop insulting your readers; write and run actual news stories, not reprinted press releases and wire stories.
It's not rocket lettuce.

Pink News: Happy Birthday Pink News!

By Fagburn Staff Writer

PinkNews.co.uk is five years old today.
From humble beginnings, the site has gone downhill quickly and is now the worst gay news source in Europe and the second worst globally.
In the last five years, they've brought the lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans community a load of reprinted press releases and unchecked wire stories.
They've worked to tell their readers not to question anything and earlier this year, extracted a range of meaningless vague election promises from the beloved leaders of the new coalition government.
But they've also focused on gay rights further afield, reporting on the plight of those persecuted in homophobic countries such as Wales and Scotland, plus reports from lavish free press trips to Pride celebrations as diverse as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
Their top stories include that time got into big trouble over that Ashley Cole photo, the one about how Europe's "leading gay news source" is actually edited and written by a straight woman.
PinkNews.co.uk publisher and founder Benjamin Cohen said: "When I started PinkNews.co.uk, I never envisaged it would become this bad. I just wanted to publish journalism so piss poor it couldn't get published elsewhere."
"I quickly realised that there was no need for broadsheet quality reporting in the LGBT community."
"It was incredible during the last general election that we seemed to make the newspapers two, maybe three, times with quite minor stories about comments from homophobic Tory candidates or our tracker poll which measured the voting intentions of 14 LGBT people."
"In the past five years, we've also had fantastic editors – Marc Shoffman, Tony Grew and Jessica Geen.
"Obviously I'm joking, only Tony Grew was any good."
"The future is incredibly exciting as we look to increase commercialisation to support my piggy bank and we have an even worse new design coming in the next few weeks.
"Some say that with the election of the Tories and with David Cameron as Prime Minister - a man we've been championing ever since we started - our work here is done.
"I assure you all, we've only just begun."

What has your experience of PinkNews.co.uk been? Can they get any worse? Click here to leave a comment.

Israel: A Free Holiday in Other Peoples' Misery

Benjamin Cohen is the founding publisher of Pink News.
He rarely writes for the site now, but this week filed a "travel" piece; "Tel Aviv - Bursting With Pride".
"Four nights in Tel Aviv, for the city’s LGBT pride celebrations has changed me in a way no holiday ever has before," Cohen gushes. "My attitudes and perceptions of Israel have changed dramatically and it’s also changed the way that I reconcile my sexuality with my religion..."
Cohen lovingly describes Tel Aviv's restaurants and gay bars, its nightclubs, a beach party and of course the Pride parade.
The political situation - meaning the tragedy of Palestine - is briefly mentioned, then disregarded as an irrelevance; "For all that you might disagree with that Israel does in regards to the peace process, it has an enviable record on gay rights and it's described by many as an oasis of tolerance and acceptance in a region of virulent homophobia that unfortunately still involves the execution of gays including teenagers" (sic).
Meaning that Israel treats Israeli lesbians and gay men okay, so who cares what it does to the Palestinians.
This process has been dubbed "Pinkwash".
Cohen admits elsewhere he was one of a number of journalists "the Israeli government has invited" - and this is the line and the lie that the Israeli thug state was hoping its guests would spin.
There is no such thing as a free holiday.
Here are some words that didn't feature in Benjamin Cohen's article; arabs, flotilla, Gaza, massacre, occupation, Palestinian, Palestinians, West Bank.
The word "arab" appears twice; describing Jaffa as Tel Aviv's "arab neighbour".
"Palestine" is mentioned once - it "was the first place that the Jewish immigrations to what was then Palestine saw when they began to move to the region from Europe in 19th century." (Emphasis added).
It is acknowledged that Israel is a military state, maintained by a conscription army, but only cause some of those Israeli Defence Force boys are so hot; "I was probably one of just a handful of men at the club who kept their shirt on all night- it’s quite hard to compete with the buffed up bodies of Israeli gays fresh from three years in the army!"
But Benjamin Cohen was enjoying a holiday - why ruin it with mentioning how the Israeli government he was a guest of is responsible for so many other people's misery?
Why indeed?
Apart from a companion piece dated June 11th, 'Tel Aviv Pride Kicks Off', Cohen has written only two other pieces for Pink News in 2010.
The last article he wrote in 2009 was titled; "Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw criticised for Sri Lankan holiday."
Cohen quotes James Ross from Human Rights Watch who said "the minister should publicly condemn President Mahinda Rajapaksa's clampdown on Tamils."
Ross urged Ben Bradshaw to "travel around, all over the country, and then publicly express his disapproval of the fact that there are still tens of thousands of Sri Lankans who cannot do the same thing because they are being held in detention centres."
Perhaps then Benjamin Cohen should also have travelled all over Israel/Palestine, to the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza, and then publicly expressed his disapproval of the fact that there are over 6 million Palestinians currently living as refugees.
Just a thought...