Two British newspapers at the scummier end of the spectrum have been reporting the trial of a musician who is accused on one count of ‘sexual assault by touching’. The person in question is charged with making advances to a teenaged girl while simultaneously kissing her mother – not a nice thing to do, if true, but neither is it a matter of gross public outrage – unless someone in the trial is famous.

So both newspapers have assiduously described the accused as being a classical musician of international renown. He is not. In fact, he is barely known beyond his own district of London, and perhaps the odd cruise liner where he gets some work.

The newspapers know this. They distort the facts by inflating his reputation in order to justify publishing a story that is of no public interest beyond its salacious detail. And they give the trial report great prominence.

Please do not try to track down the story. It is not a story. It is just a pair of mid-market UK newspapers trying to whip up excitement among dying readers. For shame.

The trial continues.

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Matthias Pintscher, music director at Ensemble Intercontemporain, has announced that he’s to be professor of composition in New York from September 2014. The catch? Student registrations close next week.

 

matthias pintscher

A date has been fixed next May for the former music director and his locked-out musicians. The programme at the Unniversity of Minnesota will replicate the orchestra’s very first concert on campus in 1929. Check it out here.

 

vanska ax

 

Ari Lesser has been filming an equality rap in his succah. Watch.

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The first of our seasonal gifts has arrived.