4th January 2017

Back on 30th November last year, Merseyside Police released the above statement, revealing they’d never possessed any conclusive proof that a brick broke the shared stairwell window at the side of Sherlock House in Manor Road, Wallasey.

This was the window that prominent Labour politicians, local councillors, Merseyside PCC Jane Kennedy and large sections of the press / media falsely claimed to be Angela Eagle’s constituency office window – ‘broken by a Jeremy Corbyn supporter’.

On the same day of the police statement, we contacted a couple of hundred ‘political journalists’ on Tim Shipman’s list on Twitter in order to provide them with an update.  This is one example of that tweet, which was duplicated many times:

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804067192023240705

The selection of 50 journos appears further down, in no particular order…

After being tweeted on 30th November 2016 with the news, they found neither the time nor the inclination to respond or to follow up on what was a crucial, game-changing update to the Angela Eagle #Brickgate #FakeNews story….  the one which falsely claimed that Corbyn supporters had smashed Angela Eagle’s office window.

The reporting of these falsehoods had all been done routinely, in dumb defiance of any press regulation (pretty much non-existent under IPSO anyway) and in breach of their own ‘journalistic codes’ on accuracy …  and all without a shred of evidence.

For a dash of flavour, we’ve taken the opportunity to select and reproduce some of these journalists’ reactionary contributions to the #Brickgate Twitter debate at the time.

Back on 12th July 2016, in the heat of the moment, with feelings running high and the blood coursing through their veins (it was MEGA news, this broken window pane in an office in Wallasey, after all), some of them became quite fired up, and throwing caution to the wind, left all kinds of hostages to fortune peppered across their timelines.  Some fairly senior politicians weighed in too.

1 Sophy Ridge – SKY -sets the tone with an out-and-out falsehood. Peter Hain bombs:

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804068512218091520

2 Ian Dunt – Politics.co.uk – sans evidence, lets his own emotions get the better of him

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804068394844749824

3 Ed Conway – SKY

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804084857680908290

4 Paul Goodman – Conservative Home

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804081616582823940

5 Beth Rigby – SKY

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804078708449562629

6 Jane Merrick – Freelancer – Bawls into the ether, then engages non-brick-throwers

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804078305032994817

7 Andrew Sparrow – Guardian

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804068649845792768

8 Nick Cohen – Observer, Time, Spectator, Standpoint

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804069220451569667

9 Darren McCaffrey – SKY

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804084042022916096

10 John Rentoul – Tony Blair’s biographer – Independent

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804068114023456768

12 Giles Dilnot – Director of Comms – just gets carried away with himself

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804069048581574657

13 Robert Hutton – Bloomberg

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804081975413895168

14 Mark Wallace – Exec. Editor, Conservative Home

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804077120246992902

15 Gaby Hinsliff – Guardian

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804078550387146752

16 Michael Deacon – Daily Telegraph – Not realising ‘brick truthers’ now includes police

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804068326825721857

17 Christopher Cook – Policy editor, Newsnight

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804079820665683969

18 Ian Katz – Newsnight

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804082892586549248

19 Matthew D’Ancona – Guardian, Standard

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804080669827747846

20 Amol Rajan – BBC Media editor

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804083124007292930

21 Kevin Maguire – Daily Mirror – 3 months on, he’s too important for fact-checking

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804067041502236672

22 Martin Kettle – Guardian

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804082989932183552

23 Chris Giles – Economics Editor, Financial Times

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804079369119535104

24 Ed Howker – Channel 4 News, Dispatches

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804080941748670474

25 Anushka Asthana – Guardian – sent us quite a few DMs at the time, now ignoring us

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804083708269645836

26 Adam Boulton – SKY

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804084692496556032

27 Ian Birrell – Foreign reporter, columnist

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804081526799552516

28 Iain Martin – Editor, Reaction

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804080059657162752

29 Theo Usherwood – Political Editor, LBC

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804081087735615490

30 Sebastian Payne – Political leader writer, Financial Times

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804077939402928128

31 James Lyons – Deputy Political Editor, Sunday Times

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804082693948534786

32 Chris Mason – BBC

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804083859725963267

33 Paul Waugh – Huffington Post – He just knows he’s right – coz Labour HQ told him

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804067315558051840

34 Rafel Behr – Political columnist, Guardian

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804068175855964160

35 Christopher Hope – Assistant Editor, Daily Telegraph

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804066943514923009

36 David Hughes, Press Association

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804084360978763780

37 Patrick Wintour,Diplomatic Editor, Guardian

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804076731313377280

38 James Millar – Freelancer

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804066724467396610

39 Andrew Picken – Politics and Investigations Editor, Sunday Post

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804080740367552515

40 Sam Macrory – Political journalist, BBC

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804081041975767040

41 Tony Grew – Parliamentary journalist

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804077632715366401

42 Torcuil Crichton – Westminster Editor, Daily Record

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804069108354584576

43 David Aaronovitch – Columnist, Times

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804067192023240705

44 Jason Groves – Deputy Political Editor, Daily Mail

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804080306093490176

45 Simon Jenkins – Guardian, Standard

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804080555805605888

46 Francis Elliott – Political Editor, Times

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804080834483539969

47 Andy McSmith – Freelancer

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804081171617431552

48 Polly Toynbee – Columnist, Guardian

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804081203326386176

49 Ben Wright – Political Correspondent, BBC

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804081236461441027

50 Michael Crick – Political Correspondent, Channel 4 News – ……….interesting……….

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804081351641006080

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And one reply…

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/804078935441113091