{"id":365525,"date":"2018-06-15T13:03:35","date_gmt":"2018-06-15T12:03:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/london-review-of-books-publishes-scurrilous-account-of-grenfell-tower-fire\/"},"modified":"2018-06-15T13:03:35","modified_gmt":"2018-06-15T12:03:35","slug":"london-review-of-books-publishes-scurrilous-account-of-grenfell-tower-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/london-review-of-books-publishes-scurrilous-account-of-grenfell-tower-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"London Review of Books publishes scurrilous account of Grenfell Tower fire"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content\">\n<h3 class=\"nomargin\">\u00a0<\/h3>\n<h2>London Review of Books publishes scurrilous account of Grenfell Tower fire<\/h2>\n<h5>\n<p>    By<br \/>\n    Alice Summers<br \/>\n    <br \/>15 June 2018<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n<p>On June 7, the\u00a0<em>London Review of<\/em> <em>Books<\/em> featured <em>The Tower,\u00a0<\/em>a lengthy essay\u00a0 on the Grenfell Tower inferno by journalist and novelist Andrew O\u2019Hagan<em>.<\/em> The essay marked one year since the devastating fire that claimed at least 72 lives. It also coincided with the opening days of the official inquiry during which fire survivors and relatives of those who died gave moving tributes to their loved ones. O\u2019Hagan\u2019s piece, however, is a mockery of journalistic and social integrity.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Tower<\/em><em>,<\/em> a 60,000-word essay, was penned by the same individual who produced a hatchet job account of Julian Assange\u2019s life in 2011 in his book <em>The Secret Life.<\/em> In that work O\u2019Hagan portrayed the WikiLeaks co-founder as narcissistic, paranoid and lying. In an interview with the <em>Times,<\/em> he accommodated himself to accusations that Assange was a Russian stooge because of WikiLeaks\u2019 role in leaking documents pertaining to Hillary Clinton\u2019s 2016 US election campaign, as well as to the bogus rape charges against Assange.<\/p>\n<p>The same contempt for democratic rights and the lives of working people is abundantly present in <em>The Tower.<\/em> There are sensitive and moving portraits of those who lived in Grenfell Tower in the first part of O\u2019Hagan\u2019s essay, but this is overshadowed and outweighed by the subsequent six parts.<\/p>\n<p>O\u2019Hagan\u2019s piece is characterised by vicious and dishonest misrepresentations, inaccuracies, the demonization of local activists, residents and firefighters, and hymns of praise to the local council.<\/p>\n<p>Various survivors and local residents who were interviewed by O\u2019Hagan, or have read his account, have denounced <em>The Tower.<\/em> They have condemned his apologetics for the Royal&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2018\/06\/15\/ohag-j15.html\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 London Review of Books publishes scurrilous account of Grenfell Tower fire By Alice Summers 15 June 2018 On June 7, the\u00a0London Review of Books featured The Tower,\u00a0a lengthy essay\u00a0 on the Grenfell Tower inferno by journalist and novelist Andrew O\u2019Hagan. The essay marked one year since the devastating fire that claimed at least 72 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2526,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-365525","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2526"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365525\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}