LATEST lesson from Twitter School: if you are going to cross swords with anyone on the micro-blogging site, try to avoid sharp-witted journalists such as The Guardian's TV critic Grace Dent. Especially if you actually work for them, however indirectly.
Which brings us to Mufadal Juwaji, who is employed by – at least, he was until this morning - the PR company Hill+Knowlton Strategies.
Juwaji describes himself as a "passionate PR profesional” [sic] and "digital communications evangelist". Not evangelical enough, however, to realise that his company works with Dent.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
So when he decided to share his thoughts with Twitter about Grace Dent during last night's repeat of Friday's Have I Got News For You, on which the Guardian writer appeared as a panelist alongside Ian Hislop, he let rip.
"@gracedent reminds me of a girlfriend I once had," he opined. "By girlfriend I mean that time I accidentally made love to an ugly abhorrent horse #hignfy"
Perhaps not being as au fait with the medium of Twitter as he claimed - by sending a tweet with Dent's Twitter handle at the front of it he ensured it would arrive in her Connect inbox - Jawal certainly wasn't expecting to receive the following response from the writer minutes later:
"@Mufadal Hi there Mufadel. How much do you like your job at Hill and Knowlton?"
Shortly followed by:
"@Mufadal I'm wondering, as a public relations person for a firm I work with, what your thinking was in sending me this message?"
A mortified Jawal swiftly tweeted his apologies, saying: "Unreservedly withdraw my vulgar and puerile comment regarding @gracedent, especially in light of the bbc doc on internet trolls last week."
He also replied to Dent, claiming his original tweet was "naive and ill-warranted" and said that he would not delete it so that he would have to "bare the full brunt of my idiocy".
Dent gave this short shrift, informing Jawal that "you'll bear the brunt of your idiocy at 10am tomorrow morning when you're unemployed. Good luck."
Jawal's current employment prospects are unknown, but seeing that H+K Strategies UK were tweeting yesterday asking if "Any wonderful people want to join our agency?" one has to fear for Jawal's chances.
-
August 23 editorial cartoonsCartoons Saturday's political cartoons include deficit dimness, steamroller-in-chief, and more
-
5 museum-grade cartoons about Trump's Smithsonian purgeCartoons Artists take on institutional rebranding, exhibit interpretation, and more
-
Settling the West Bank: a death knell for a Palestine state?In the Spotlight The reality on the ground is that the annexation of the West Bank is all but a done deal
-
Will Twitter save Tucker Carlson?Talking Point The platform may be a boon to the ex-Fox host. But it's a tricky tightrope to walk for the social media giant. Will it last?
-
Tucker Carlson launching a 'new version' of his show on TwitterSpeed Read
-
NPR quits Twitter following 'state-affiliated' label, says it 'undermines our credibility'Speed Read
-
The Week Unwrapped: Antisocial Saudis, hormone therapy and retro techpodcast Why is Saudi Arabia investing in – and banning – social networks? Will new research make life easier for trans women? And is the future of technology dumb?
-
10 things you need to know today: December 17, 2022Daily Briefing Elon Musk restores Twitter accounts of several prominent journalists after backlash, U.S. will buy 3 million barrels of oil to replenish strategic reserve, and more
-
Elon Musk bans critical journalists on TwitterSpeed Read Several high-profile reporters have been suspended for sharing tweets about owner’s private jet flights
-
10 things you need to know today: November 20, 2022Daily Briefing At least 5 dead and 18 injured in LGBTQ nightclub shooting in Colorado, Elon Musk reinstates former President Donald Trump on Twitter, and more
-
Saudi Arabia sentences U.S. citizen to 16 years in prison over tweets, family saysSpeed Read
