Myers has to stop attacking single mothers

“The duty of a journalist is to tell the truth.” So why then does Kevin Myers purposely proceed to present ill-informed opinion after opinion as fact in his column yesterday?

If he thinks the lack of a father figure is the root cause behind the riots in the UK he is, and as I have thought for quite a while, badly out of touch with the reality of the world to which he has obviously detached himself from a long time ago.

As a journalist, of which I am supposedly cut from the same cloth as Kevin, he is right. It is our duty to tell the truth so let’s just do that, by actually doing some research and not ranting.

“The most astounding element in the British television coverage of the riots has been the steadfast refusal to mention the race of most of the rioters.” How wrong you are Mr Myers! BBC’s Irish journalist in London Padraic O’Brien was on the scene on Monday night and although saying he did not want to focus on the point you allude to, said there were as many white kids there as other races.

While on Tuesday, this awful attempt at producing any insightful information from British television coverage, the lazy buggers –well the news gave us a full map of London in the form of an aerial photo. On this they outlined each borough where there had been rioting in the Empire’s capita up to that point, broke it down by demographic, percentage of age groups, proportion of inhabitants with university education, percentage ethnicity, typical area of employment by majority of inhabitants etc. and compared them.

Surprisingly, even to the commentators, the areas thought of as leafy, respectable areas with higher proportions of family units and educated inhabitants were as much to the fore as areas previously associated with mob behaviour.

But I suppose you are right, they didn’t come out and tell us that black kids live in these areas. How terribly lax of them!

So doing some research and getting facts and figures, there is roughly seven percent of London homes that are fatherless (2001 census figures, as the 2011 have not been released yet). However according to Irish census figures of 2006, nine per cent of Irish households are fatherless, which is a staggering number, yet a number that does not riot!

It is a shame that Mr Myers did not hold back until the inevitable cessation of rioting in the UK, as an article on page three of the short form paper yesterday contradicted his argument. Tom Whitehead wrote “A future soldier, a graphic designer and a university graduate were among dozens of alleged rioters who appeared in court yesterday.”

Doesn’t sound like the fine Mona Lisa type portrait of a rioter as a young man that Mr Myers is trying to paint. In fact his finished canvas comes across far more abstract and Picasso-esque, his points are there, but just a bit hard to define.

If Mr Myers cannot see that these riots are as simple as an act of opportunism, plain and simple, well I’m not sure we can go any further. We have had social media, race, a botched shooting and now single mums blamed for this.

Like a forest fire started by mishap, should we blame the carbon composition of the trees for escalating the problem. I think not, the fire will spread due to its proximity to fuel. As with the rioting, they spread due to their proximity to luxury goods. With opportunity comes great risk; a risk the youth of London and the UK were willing to take.

There is a debate to be had about fatherless households, however I fear Mr Myers has used this as yet another opportunity to flog his favourite Shergar. It’s a shameful attempt at journalism, and that is the truth!

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/kevin-myers/kevin-myers-feral-rioters-all-have-one-thing-in-common-a-lack-of-father-figures-2844058.html