We are aware this may make us appear terribly foolish. The Rochdale Herald Editor, the late Quentin D Fortesqueue, is seething about the lack of comprehension amongst the respective readerships of the difference between the Rochdale Herald and the Rochdale Herald Online.
“They are totally different members of the Rochdale Herald, The Herald on Sunday & Rochdale Metro Media Group, which happen to be copyrights of the same corporate entity.” He bellowed, tumescent with rage.
“Just look at that perfectly good article I wrote with a right leaning stance the other day: ‘Labour less popular than Conservatives snap poll reveals.”
An absolutely solid headline, so well received in our print version that the advert for a massage parlour adjacent received a record number of calls that day.
But when they reprint it online, the totally different readership near ignore it, as it doesn’t fit their narrative. I was quite hurt.”
Fortesqueue slammed the drip, drip, drip of plagiarism online. He cited the piece by Maurice Oxford on 19 June 2017 “Reading the Daily Mail causes cancer of the soul”. In that piece, Oxford wrote:
“The Mail has, for many years, been running a campaign of hate, a slow drip, drip, drip of insidious subtle propaganda designed to sow distrust and fear into the minds of its readers.”
“Now look at the piece the Daily Mail ran on 22 June: “hardly a day passes without another drip, drip, drip of mendacious vitriol and bile from Guardian writers, attacking us and our readership and…small-c…”
“I don’t know how many times I need to say this. We are not affiliated with the Guardian. I have never asked you for money, and some of our articles don’t have typographical errors.”
Fortesque then waived a letter he may or may not have received from an author that may or may not have been Paul Dacre.
“Just look at this! I’m now getting complaints about the Rochdale Herald Online asking whether Paul Dacre is the most flaccid cockgoblin in the UK?
We didn’t run that in the Rochdale Herald. Totally different newspaper brands under the same corporate entity. I don’t know why people find that confusing.
Johnny Wapping works for the Rochdale Herald Online. His selfies in front of burning tower blocks are nothing to do with us.
