The evil of searching for 'Gary Glitter'

Martin Belam
Written by
Published 10 November, 2008
Categories: , , ,

<< previous | next >>
No comments yet
Add your comment

Personally I remain unconvinced of the power of 70's music to reach out through time and corrupt the youth of today via the medium of guidance notes for exams, but that hasn't stopped the Gary Glitter GCSE 'scandal' being one of the main media storms of the day.

Gary Glitter Sun story

For me perhaps the most unintentionally funny bit of it is the quote from the anonymous headmaster in The Sun about his fears when teenagers go online:

"He's a convicted paedophile jailed for sexually abusing kids. It’s completely inappropriate to recommend him as listening material. Boys and girls of 15 or 16 who select this song will go straight to the internet to find Glitter’s music. I dread to think what they may find searching online for him."

Leaving aside whether 'Gary Glitter' is the most disturbing search term that a 16 year old boy can think of to plug into Google, if you search for 'Gary Glitter' today the results you get include...none other than The Sun advertising their GCSE story!

"Gary Glitter latest - Exam bosses ask kids to study pop perv's music for GCSE's"
The Sun's Gary Glitter advert
No comments yet
Comments are closed across the site whilst I take a break. You can still contact me directly.

Search this site

Get free updates

Email icon   RSS icon
Sign up for email updates
  

Talks & presentations


Edinburgh International Science Festival

"Journalism in the digital age"
I'll be appearing on a panel with Sarah Hartley and Iain Hepburn at the Edinburgh International Science Festival on Sunday April 11th. More details...

Posts of the moment


Day of the Triffids opening sequence

Day of the Triffids
If everyone suddenly went blind, how long would the Internet survive, and could you still publish news on it?


The Express makes a twit of itself

With professionals of this quality, who needs 'citizen journalist' enemies?
It is hard to argue that ethics and quality set the 'professional journalist' apart from the amateur blogger, if the 'professional' keeps publishing articles so wrong that they have to be deleted.