Jonathan and I go back a long time. In the hay day of Ward 87, Jonathan felt it wasn't "media friendly" and subsequently ignored the legitimate concerns I raised on Ward 87. Jonathan can now be seen to be tarting himself up for the BMJ. Whistleblowing is all the rage and Jonathan decided to pitch in to the BMJ about it.
In all honesty, Jon has cared nothing for patient safety or the issues of whistleblowing since the dawn of time. Everyone can see for himself what his articles have consisted of. His personal life has pushed him in the direction of child protection.
Now that his subject has been struck off, this PACA member now parades his pen in the BMJ. He ironically calls his piece " The Price of Silence". What is the Price of Silence Jonathan? How about explanining to the world why Ward 87 and its patients were never sexy enough to write about. Jon has no explanation for this of course bar the fact he has always been a judgmental git with a posh accent and not much depth. Despite Penny Mellor's protestations regarding Jonathan, I ignored her for a long time until I found out for myself what a vacant pathetic man he really was. While Mellor and I differ on many aspects, we agree on two issues, one is Jonathan Gornall and the other is the non declaration of conflicts of interests on papers written by PACA members. There were promises of declaration but as Mellor kindly pointed out recently, these declarations were not forthcoming. In the world of research, this would lead to an element of bias. Essentially, the vested interests by the authors on a number of papers make the quality of the papers questionable and tainted. As everyone will know, Wakefield is being tried at the GMC for his non declaration of interests. In summary, while Mellor remains an enemy, I will have to agree with her on these two points.
Gornall has been intimately involved with PACA raising questions as to the extent of his independence. This is what Jonathan told me about associating with issues of patient safety listed on both websites.
While explaining his requirements to be "independent", he happily joined PACA and failed to declare his interests in all his articles related to child protection. Having said this, we found him on the PACA 's exclusive membership mailing lists. We also found him associating freely with all doctors on PACAs list. The above is the kind of crap that is spread around by most journalists. They are happy to use material from our websites but sit in judgment of it. Given most of the NHS Exposed website is written by patients, relatives and doctors on issues of patient safety, I find it insulting that their stories can be degraded in such a way. I know Jon and his mates consider my style of writing to be unacceptable and this style appears to cloud all issues concerning the actual importance of patient safety. The focus again is on style and not the factual element presented. He presents me as a " campaigner" failing to understand a fact of life - I was never a campaigner but a writer of the medical aspects of whistleblowing.
After this discovery, David Southall forced Jonathan Gornall to apologise to me possibly to prevent episodes like this that counter the interests of PACA and David Southall. Jonathan limply apologised. Of course, a limp apology like that does not make him a man. Real men would never run a life of double standards in the first place. I understood on that day that Jonathan may have all the cosmetics but there was more integrity in a man who worked collecting the dustbins.
We should all say quite frankly that he epitomises the typical journalist who works for high brow newspapers and thinks he can judge whistleblowers by his own narrow minded yardstick. He certainly judged me in ways I would never have expected. Then to Jon, it is the cosmetics that count. Patient safety has meant nothing to him but he was quite happy to spend his time looking down his large and pointy nose making judgments against those of us who do work tirelessly to maintain patient safety. In his piece, he laments over gagging clauses. Again, as mentioned previously he is jumping the bandwagon of all journalists so they can now place whistleblowers in that "victim whistleblowing" bowl and remain blameless. The real gagging clauses are provided by newspapers who prevent whistleblowers from raising their concerns publicly. This is done indirectly by simply never featuring the story. I cannot blame the NHS litigation team for implementing gagging clauses - its a commercial decision and the NHS is a commercial organisation.
Let's ask the question again - how many whistleblowers have journalists ignored because their faces do not fit ? What is the price of this gag implemented by newspapers and how many patients have been killed as a result? We only have to look at Gosport to count them all.
Yes, I dislike journalists because I know them to be unethical conceited arrogant people with no concern regarding patient safety at all. They are concerned about "money" and getting their story in print. As people they tend to be unintelligent, vacant, devoid of human emotion, are of the view that only they are right and everyone else is wrong and are incapable of finding fault with themselves. Most journalists are immoral creatures. They pride themselves as those who believe in the truth and justice. In reality, their articles are merely controlled spin. I say this from long discussions with many journalists who have purposely shut down not mine but various other whistleblowers/patients in the last decade.
This is the reason I have no time for any of them. As the readers of the blog will note, I have no time for journalists and lets face it, I don't need them either.
In all honesty, Jon has cared nothing for patient safety or the issues of whistleblowing since the dawn of time. Everyone can see for himself what his articles have consisted of. His personal life has pushed him in the direction of child protection.
Now that his subject has been struck off, this PACA member now parades his pen in the BMJ. He ironically calls his piece " The Price of Silence". What is the Price of Silence Jonathan? How about explanining to the world why Ward 87 and its patients were never sexy enough to write about. Jon has no explanation for this of course bar the fact he has always been a judgmental git with a posh accent and not much depth. Despite Penny Mellor's protestations regarding Jonathan, I ignored her for a long time until I found out for myself what a vacant pathetic man he really was. While Mellor and I differ on many aspects, we agree on two issues, one is Jonathan Gornall and the other is the non declaration of conflicts of interests on papers written by PACA members. There were promises of declaration but as Mellor kindly pointed out recently, these declarations were not forthcoming. In the world of research, this would lead to an element of bias. Essentially, the vested interests by the authors on a number of papers make the quality of the papers questionable and tainted. As everyone will know, Wakefield is being tried at the GMC for his non declaration of interests. In summary, while Mellor remains an enemy, I will have to agree with her on these two points.
Gornall has been intimately involved with PACA raising questions as to the extent of his independence. This is what Jonathan told me about associating with issues of patient safety listed on both websites.
"It is not a question of my getting on with you or not. Surely you must see that as a journalist I cannot associate with the views and actions of a campaigner such as yourself, and that it would be entirely inappropriate for me to be linked with the style and intemperate nature of the material you post on your website?"
"Journalism is my livelihood. Credibility is important to me"
While explaining his requirements to be "independent", he happily joined PACA and failed to declare his interests in all his articles related to child protection. Having said this, we found him on the PACA 's exclusive membership mailing lists. We also found him associating freely with all doctors on PACAs list. The above is the kind of crap that is spread around by most journalists. They are happy to use material from our websites but sit in judgment of it. Given most of the NHS Exposed website is written by patients, relatives and doctors on issues of patient safety, I find it insulting that their stories can be degraded in such a way. I know Jon and his mates consider my style of writing to be unacceptable and this style appears to cloud all issues concerning the actual importance of patient safety. The focus again is on style and not the factual element presented. He presents me as a " campaigner" failing to understand a fact of life - I was never a campaigner but a writer of the medical aspects of whistleblowing.
After this discovery, David Southall forced Jonathan Gornall to apologise to me possibly to prevent episodes like this that counter the interests of PACA and David Southall. Jonathan limply apologised. Of course, a limp apology like that does not make him a man. Real men would never run a life of double standards in the first place. I understood on that day that Jonathan may have all the cosmetics but there was more integrity in a man who worked collecting the dustbins.
We should all say quite frankly that he epitomises the typical journalist who works for high brow newspapers and thinks he can judge whistleblowers by his own narrow minded yardstick. He certainly judged me in ways I would never have expected. Then to Jon, it is the cosmetics that count. Patient safety has meant nothing to him but he was quite happy to spend his time looking down his large and pointy nose making judgments against those of us who do work tirelessly to maintain patient safety. In his piece, he laments over gagging clauses. Again, as mentioned previously he is jumping the bandwagon of all journalists so they can now place whistleblowers in that "victim whistleblowing" bowl and remain blameless. The real gagging clauses are provided by newspapers who prevent whistleblowers from raising their concerns publicly. This is done indirectly by simply never featuring the story. I cannot blame the NHS litigation team for implementing gagging clauses - its a commercial decision and the NHS is a commercial organisation.
Let's ask the question again - how many whistleblowers have journalists ignored because their faces do not fit ? What is the price of this gag implemented by newspapers and how many patients have been killed as a result? We only have to look at Gosport to count them all.
Yes, I dislike journalists because I know them to be unethical conceited arrogant people with no concern regarding patient safety at all. They are concerned about "money" and getting their story in print. As people they tend to be unintelligent, vacant, devoid of human emotion, are of the view that only they are right and everyone else is wrong and are incapable of finding fault with themselves. Most journalists are immoral creatures. They pride themselves as those who believe in the truth and justice. In reality, their articles are merely controlled spin. I say this from long discussions with many journalists who have purposely shut down not mine but various other whistleblowers/patients in the last decade.
This is the reason I have no time for any of them. As the readers of the blog will note, I have no time for journalists and lets face it, I don't need them either.
6 comments:
You always turn on people. Maybe the problem is sometimes you?
I doubt RP has the problem, we all know JG to be a complete and utter tosspot.
Lots of us write to RP and get on with her.
No problems with Rita. We think she is just great
"Maybe the problem is sometimes you?"
Possibly - might be a real problem to be intolerant to conceited arrogant people. In my view, there is no need to tolerate inadequate people when there is already a world full of wonderful ones. Unfortunately, as a whistleblower - you tend to meet the largest selection of tossers this side of the globe. Jonathan's reaction to me is really his inadequacies as a human being. We got on very well indeed until he wrote that remark. I was startled really but understood that he was indeed a vacant human being with no idea of human decency. He may have all the superficial dressings of a upper class Times journalist [ex] but he still has not learned the art of being a gentleman.
I shouldn't really clump all journalists together - I know the Sunday Mercury have some great journalists as do Irish BBC Radio. Apart from that, most of them are really not worth talking to.
RP
Some people find it difficult to cope with honesty, openess and integrity.
Where does the fault lie? perhaps it is because such qualities are so rare, that those who normally lurk in their earth boxes find sunshine too bright for their taste
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