Russel Brand Slammed by Journalist Dina Rickman for Keeping Focussed on an Interview

Since Russell Brand developed a social and political conscience (or as least begun to share it with the public) I have been a big fan. 

He has recently been supporting the campaign to fight Westbrook Properties from massively increasing rent in order to force eviction of tenants at New Era Estate. 

In an video interview with Paraic O'Brien, Brand slams...no, that's not the right work...smashes... nope still not there...politely and respectfully...yes, much better... dresses down O'Brien for changing the direction of the discussion about the rent hikes and forced evictions of the residents of New Era Estate by asking Brand how much his home costs. 

FYI, Brand rents.

O'Brien continues to try and force some sensational confession out of Brand while, now, completely ignoring the more important issue regarding the people of the New Era Estate in Hackney.

Shitty reporting? Why yes. 

Have a look for yourself:

Enter Dina Rickman, in support of Brand and attacking O'Brein's dodgy reporting you may think. But no. She adds a new layer to the stupid with this headline:

Don't Ever Ask Russell Brand How Much His House Costs

...which he doesn't own.

Essential, in her few lines of reporting, she is attempting to lambaste Brand for putting O'Brein on point.  She was supporting O'Brein's bad reporting, which leads me to think that she does not know how to report.

I thought I would give her the benefit of the doubt and check out her other writing. Here are some of here recent highlights:

• "Would You Want to be a Princess Nowadays?" (Oh wait, just a list of comments. No reporting going on here folks)
• "I'm fat, so what? It's not an ugly word': Why the f-word might just finally be OK"
• "We Need to Break The Public Hair Taboo"

Classy stuff.

I am beginning to think that we need to take a more active role in improving the media. So here is what I propose; copy and paste this message to Matthew Champion, the editor of i100 and let him know that Dina Rickman is not up to scratch:

TWITTER: @matthewchampion, I know you want a site we can trust, but @dinarickman has slipped through the cracks with this last @rustyrockets piece

Or your own creative twitter. I am sure Champion will listen, as he says:

Because i100 is from The Independent you can still trust us to take our facts very seriously (even the funny ones). Some of the stories will have been inspired by the brilliant work in the i or The Independent. Most will be from the crack team of i100 journalists.

Now, let's have a look at O'Brien. His editor, Ben de Pear, seems to be on his side with this ridiculous tweet:

@rustyrockets vocal on the rent row- but not on his own calling our @paraicobrien"snide" #NewEraEstate http://bit.ly/1FHK1sp #c4news at 7

 So perhaps even de Pear needs a little schooling on journalism. Let's hope this sinks in:

@bendepear, old @rustyrockets had to put your boy, @paraicobrien, back on topic about #NewEraEstate. You should be thanking him.

 What it all comes down to is a sub culture of shitty reporting. These are the people we rely on to get information about what is going on in our world and they are letting us down. That is why many of us are going to the internet for our news for better or worse. Perhaps we need to look at our news through the lens of sites like the Trews.