By Philippe Philoppe
A Brussels-based journalist allegedly fabricated a whole paragraph of a story this week in his impatience to get to the Hobnob tin.
Reports were leaked on Tuesday of the shocking incident in which the journalist at an as-yet unconfirmed publication lackadaisically claimed that the Netherlands was set to hold a national Stoned and Naked Day – simply in order to finish his story and progress to his tea break.
The false claim was uncovered later by a Dutch colleague – fortunately before the article had gone to print.
It is thought the article was about wind farms, and that the journalist had attempted to establish an extremely tenuous link between sustainable energy production, marijuana consumption and the sex industry in the Netherlands.
He went on to assert that the Dutch government had designated May 26 a national holiday, on which free marijuana would be handed out to anyone who turned up in the nude at Amsterdam’s Central Station.
“He was trying to fill column inches and we all know how hard that can be on a slow news day, but there is absolutely no excuse for making such offensive and inaccurate claims,” the anonymous Dutchman told the WW.
Sex industry representatives today expressed their indignation at the association the anonymous journalist allegedly made between prostitution and wind farms.
Escort and Dutch sex workers’ union leader Bitava Ho said: “What I do is absolutely my choice and has nothing whatsoever to do with windmills.”
The journalist is known to be especially fond of dipping Hobnobs – a popular British biscuit brand – in his tea, his Dutch colleague said, and has frequently rushed stories in order to put the kettle on for this purpose.
It is understood that the journalist may have been placed on garden leave pending treatment for biscuit addiction.
Was Hobnob to blame for sloppy journalism?
I would like to join in with those protesting about the near-slanderous connection this low level hack ,who can only be called a journo, has made between one of the oldest and noblest professions of all of which I am proud to be a member and the entirely arriviste so-called profession of farming air – please! Do you really take us for fools? What a ridiculous notion, and whatever happened to time-honoured concepts such as that air is free?
Yours in indignation,
Mrs Hyphenated-Adj, aka Bittaf Luff