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1/ Your statement is disingenuous and your action seems driven by anything but everything you claimed to have driven it. Here are my reasons: https://twitter.com/brittlepaper/status/1250570187033714689">https://twitter.com/brittlepa...
2/ Otosirieze& #39;s “hastily assembled, face-washing gimmick” and “unintelligent” were not accusations, they were his interpretations of his observation. Yes, they ought to be removed if they had no relevance to the reporting but interpreting them as accusations is disingenuous.
3/ It is also disingenuous that a professor of Literature would not recognize the emphasizing of outrage through, “shame! Shame! Shame! Shame!”
"I felt, and feel, Otosirieze’s outrage". Yet you equated his expression of that outrage to the son of a Governor& #39;s clear threatening of
"I felt, and feel, Otosirieze’s outrage". Yet you equated his expression of that outrage to the son of a Governor& #39;s clear threatening of
4/ a woman old enough to be his mother with gang rape?You must underestimate the intelligence of your readers to suggest they wouldn& #39;t know that expressing an outrage over threats of gang rape does not constitute "stoop[ing] to the level of those making" the gang rape threat.
5/ Nothing could be more gratuitous and professionally dishonoring of journalism than a refusal to shun political correctness in reporting a message. Bello El-Rufai unambiguously threatened the mother of his adversary (in a verbal fight) with gang rape, period.
6/ A credible journalist has an obligation to report such a heinous threat in the language the public understands. There is no other or better interpretation of Bello El-Rufai& #39;s threat than gang rape, any suggestion that it ought to have been described merely as “lewd comments”
7/ is dishonest, unprofessional, and amounts to a cover up. Nothing Otosirieze wrote could be more incendiary than the words of Bello El-Rufai and your brazen censoring of his reporting. He was compromising enough to have deleted his opinion in that last paragraph, you should
8/ have shown leadership and evidence of not being manipulated or being bought by anyone by ignoring the mere title. That title is not inflammatory because it accurately conveyed Bello El-Rufai& #39;s message.
It is a tough sell to discerning minds that you truly believed that your
It is a tough sell to discerning minds that you truly believed that your
9/ Deputy Editor, with who you worked for four years, fits into "non-discerning orators compet[ing] for the most irreverent rhetoric". If you genuinely believed so, and still worked with him, then you are the problem, not Otosirieze.
10/ Since you confessed to being an admirer of his writing career, you must be conversant with his diction. Since leopards don& #39;t change their spots overnight, Otosirieze’s past posts must have borne traits of "highly sensationalized reporting". Therefore, you were either being
11/ hypocritical in disapproving of it now or you were driven by external factors to so doing. Again, there is nothing "potentially libelous" in the way Otosirieze described his observation of "two Nigerian newspapers". You characterized his hanging up the phone on you as his
12/ refusal to "engage on this issue professionally". Could he sue you for so describing of his action, even if you are wrong? Of course not, because that& #39;s your perception of his action--nothing forbids you from perceiving his action incorrectly. In the same vein,
15/ "the journalists whose pieces he mentioned" would be stupid and laughed out of court if they "were to sue Brittle Paper for libel" over Otosirieze& #39;s perception of their articles--he distorted no words or messages of theirs.
You took pleasure in detailing how you pulled the
You took pleasure in detailing how you pulled the
16/story for his refusal to alter the title (his opinion), after you had succeeded in getting him to delete the last paragraph (also his opinion). Obviously, your problem was his opinion, so how dare you accuse him of misrepresenting you for saying the exact thing you had stated?
17/ You strike objective readers as a dictator for holding him responsible for what others think and say. How is it fair of you to be "extremely disappointed" in him for not refuting all the things you claim others think or say about you and Brittle Paper, especially since you
18/ swiftly removed his access to the paper? If your action on this matter has led others to question your integrity, he has no obligation to deny anything on your behalf. It reeks of dictatorship/narcissism to consider his not vouching for your character, when he has no
19/ obligation to so do or as he might even be in doubt of your character now, as a "deep betrayal". Is Otosirieze not a human being with feelings? You cannot be irrationally needy, so you only likely consider him so beneath you that even his emotions must subjugate to your need
20/ or Brittle Paper& #39;s, else it is "astonishing" that he exhibits them. If you don& #39;t see him as a slave, then he is entitled to his feelings; you are only entitled to not agreeing with them. You seem tormented by your conscience, and to evade that torment, you seek solace in
21/ finding faults in his person, not in his work over which you autocratically relieved him from the services of Brittle Paper.
22/ Your statement is deceptive and inelegant in totality. If anything positive emerged from this needless drama, it is the resultant exposure of you, Brittle Paper, and Otosirieze; I had never heard of any or all of you until now. It& #39;s over, just move on.
