On Tuesday January 23rd, Madison Marriage published her article in the Financial Times, “Men Only: Inside the charity fundraiser where hostesses are put on show” (Ref.1) which reached international controversy. The article was accepted across the board, with very few media outlets expressing any real criticism. The article was accepted by Government, prompting them to reconsider NDA laws and sexual harassment legislation.
However, an analysis of the report, the accompanying video and statements released since (by hostesses past & present, attendees, other staff, etc) has shown how there are far too many holes in Ms Marriage’s story for it to be considered valid and acceptable (Ref.2). Such questions/problems are:
- If Ms Marriage worked a 10 hour shift, starting at 4pm, why does her footage/timestamps show her entering the premises at 10pm?
- If Ms Marriage worked a 10 hour shift, why does her footage/timestamps show she was there for a maximum of 1 hour?
- If Ms Marriage worked a 10 hour shift with a hidden camera, why did she return with only 34-seconds of footage?
- Why didn’t she show in her undercover footage the abuse she alleged in her article?
- How did Ms Marriage manage to hide the camera and massive battery pack on her person whilst wearing the transparent dress?
- Why didn’t Ms Marriage elaborate further on the email sent out 2-days before the event?
- What evidence were the editors provided with that proved Ms Marriage was employed by Artista?
Tomorrow (Tuesday 13th February), there will be a Twitter campaign to try and gain a response from them. They failed to respond to email when asked for comment so, social media is the next available route.
If enough people are all tweeting throughout the day, using the hashtags #OperationDivorce and #FessUpFT, we could cause this campaign to trend and coax FT into responding to these criticisms. If possible, tag other news outlets as well. The Twitter accounts to tweet at are as follows:
Madison Marriage: @miss_marriage
Financial Times: @FinancialTimes
An example tweet is as follows:
Hi @miss_marriage @FinancialTimes, if Ms Marriage worked a 10 hour shift, starting at 4pm, why does her footage/timestamps show her entering the premises at 10pm? #OperationDivorce http://thebackbencher.co.uk/the-farce-of-the-presidents-club-allegations/
A secondary port-of-call is to complain directly. If tomorrow’s Twitter attempt fails, we shall have to reach out directly to the relevant complaints authority. The Financial Times is not part of the Independent Press Standards Organisation so, if we are to complain about the article, we have to complain to … the Financial Times. How convenient. The address to complain to is editor@ft.com
References:
1 – https://www.ft.com/content/075d679e-0033-11e8-9650-9c0ad2d7c5b5
2 – http://thebackbencher.co.uk/the-farce-of-the-presidents-club-allegations/
