Blogger hoaxes media with Baltimore mayor's Wire attack
Blogger hoaxes media Baltimore mayor's Wire criticisms
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By Matt Hallam. |  |
Friday, 28, Aug 2009 03:13
By Lewis Bazley.
A hoaxer was responsible for alleged comments by the mayor of Baltimore criticising a British MP over comparing British life to TV drama The Wire.
After the shadow home secretary Chris Grayling last week claimed parts of Manchester were reminiscent of the drug-addled streets of Baltimore shown in the critically acclaimed HBO series, a ripose purportedly from Sheila Dixon, the mayor of the Maryland city, surfaced on Thursday.
The alleged statement from Ms Dixon said that to compare The Wire to the "real Baltimore" was "as pointless as boasting that Baltimore has a per capita homicide rate a fraction of that in the popular UK television show Midsomer Murders".
However, it has since emerged the mayor's supposed statement to her "fellow citizens" was the work of one R Monkee Esq, the pseudonym of the political blogger who runs The Recess Monkey site.
The blogger's hoax also included a fake website and spoof YouTube and Twitter accounts and a video - which can be seen below - which compared the fictional town of Midsomer to Baltimore.
The hoax was uncovered on Friday afternoon after it was noted that right-clicking on the hoax mayoral website revealed the following message: "OK, so I'm just having a bit of fun at Chris Grayling's expense. Sitting in the office on a hot August afternoon, I was fantasising that I was Mayor of Baltimore and how annoyed I would be. I hope you very quickly picked up that this was a spoof. Didn't mean to break any laws or ethical mores - please don't extradite me if I have unwittingly done so. Hope you appreciate the humour, Alex Hilton."
Grayling had earlier this week claimed British police were fighting an "urban war" and said parts of Manchester were reminiscent of the drug-addled streets of Baltimore shown in the critically acclaimed HBO series.
Though the apparent mayoral comments were fake, the chief constable of Greater Manchester police, Peter Fahy, was critical of the Conservative MP's remarks.
"I am disappointed in anything which paints a misleading picture of this great city because it makes it more difficult for the young people growing up here," he explained.
Grayling, the MP for Epsom and Ewell, had made his remarks in Westminster this week after explaining he had seen gang crime and drug-related violence while in the Moss Side district of Manchester.
But his speech came in for derision from Peter Hermann, a reporter on the Baltimore Sun newspaper, for which David Simon, creator of The Wire, formerly worked.
"A British politician spent a night with cops in Manchester's gang unit and promptly compared what he saw to The Wire, prompting what the Brits call a row over crime and grime," Hermann wrote.
"The comparison to Manchester seems a bit of a stretch, and says more about how politicians hype crime than anything about Baltimore.
"Manchester has a population of about 400,000 and roughly 35 murders a year, compared with the 230 to 250 or so in Baltimore. None of the murders this year have involved guns."
Grayling has since attempted to clarify his comments, writing in the Manchester Evening News that he was "impressed" by the efforts of the specialist police team in Moss Side to tackle local gangs.
"But I did not suggest that Moss Side was Baltimore," he continued. "Palpably the level of violence there is greater than in Manchester or any other UK city."
See the Recess Monkey's hoax video: