When a tweet becomes a right hook

From the Sidelines

President Ricardo Martinelli, has several times made the news, not always favorably, because of his tweetering including his recent HP (SOB) message.

These ddays it seems that  celebrities and politicians have enough time on their hands to read and send Twitter messages throughout the day and the airwaves are becoming verbal battlefields.

Much of the content would land the writers in court for libel or slander, if  it appeared in print or on air, but now it has become a no holds barred  cyberspace contest, something like a barroom brawl that starts with some inane comment about the bodily. attributes of a pop singer or football player. 

The problem with Twitter addicts is that they often fire off messages without a moment of reflection. When people still wrote letters with a pen, or a typewriter, they could dash off a nasty diatribe, and put it in an envelope ready for posting the next morning. Lots of time to reflect, and maybe pull back and tear up the offending epistle.

Take a look at the words of  some  High ranking media tweeters:

Former News of the World and Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan has taken to Twitter to denounce accusers who say he knew he had published stories sourced from phone hacking.

Meanwhile more allegations are surfacing with the BBC paying back recordings and hinting that his celebrity status as the man who succeeded Larry King at CBB is in danger.

Morgan singled out Conservative MP Louise Mensch, former Mirror editor Roy Greenslade and political blogger Guido Fawkes (real name: Paul Staines) as "lying smearers" for continuing to make the accusations despite his repeated denials.

Earlier this week, the Daily Beast dug up an old Radio 4 Desert Island Discs interview with Morgan which his critics said showed he had employed the services of people who hacked into phones.

But yesterday Morgan, who is now a celebrity and US TV host, fought back with some quite personal attacks.

In one tweet, he said that Greenslade had admitted to faking the Mirror's Spot the Ball competition so that none of his readers could possibly win. "And that, [Greenslade], is a very serious crime of fraud… the police should investigate," he wrote.

Morgan also posted a link to a Wikipedia page on Paul Staines, commenting, "Not exactly Woodward/Bernstein is it?" in a reference to the great investigative journalists.

He finished: "I don't mind being wrongly smeared with all this #Hackgate stuff, I'd just rather it wasn't done by liars, druggie ex-bankrupts and conmen.

"I'll be making no further comment on this #Hackgate nonsense. But important for everyone to know exactly who these lying smearers are." 

A fine case of calling the kettle black.