The Independent admits misleading readers... but only if you look really hard

The Independent has admitted that the ‘comedian’ who wrote an article slating the circuit as a hotbed of racism and sexism was no such thing.

The newspaper was accused of playing to alt-right stereotypes of humourless liberals when it published an opinion piece written by Liam Evans last week entitled. ‘As a new comedian working the circuit, I’m appalled at disgusting "jokes" creeping back into the industry.’

Questions were immediately raised over the writer’s identity as there was no record of Evans ever having played a gig, nor did any stand-up recall working with him.

Leading comedians including Stewart Lee and Kevin Eldon wrote to executive editor Will Gore demanding to know what checks had been done – yet no answer came.

However last night, the Independent quietly changed the article to refer to Evans as a ‘comedy aficionado’.

A footnote to the piece now reads: ‘The headline to this article has been amended, to no longer refer to the author as a comedian "working the circuit".’

Evans’s only other online presence is a Twitter account set up in January, with just eight tweets to his name. His bio reads: ‘Writer, reformed rugby lad and gender equality activist. Asian blood, Celtic heart. He/him.’

In the piece, Evans accused Fin Taylor of ‘thinly veiled rape apologism’ and said: ‘Some of the jokes I have heard on the comedy circuit of late constitute actual hate speech.’

He added: ‘Speaking as a person of colour in an irredeemably racist culture, I’m sick of being accused of hypersensitivity by straight white men who are blind to their own privilege.

‘I believe in freedom of speech, but I am also adult enough to recognise that this freedom does not extend to making public events unsafe for vulnerable members of society…. It takes an astonishing degree of entitlement to claim the right to free speech without accepting the consequences of one’s choices.’

Published: 5 Mar 2019