Thread by @earthFgardener

@GWmag @TheMontyDon @Telegraph No surprises that ‘attack’ featured heavily from then on, such is the venom that’s on tap from our #gardening & #horticulture industries. And then came wild, chest-thumping talk (yawn) of ‘boycotts’ of @GWmag 👇So we won’t engage with what @TheMontyDon says, we’ll ‘fight back'

@GWmag @TheMontyDon @Telegraph and show him who’s boss (even if we know we’re doing the wrong thing by mining peat, destroying habitat & adding to #climatechaos, because profit comes before everything else). One of the few media outlets that treated the story with honesty was @Independent w/ this headline

@GWmag @TheMontyDon @Telegraph @Independent That was a bit more like it. No invective toward @TheMontyDon, pinpointing of industry/gov failure to end peat use & mention of how using peat is adding to our #ClimateCrisis. What’s not to like? @thetimes’s stab at covering the ‘story’ couldn’t resist an invidious touch:

@GWmag @TheMontyDon @Telegraph @Independent @thetimes Sadly @thetimes showed it’s ignorance & apparent lack of access to Google by referring to peat as, um, ‘fertile soil’. But let’s put shoddy journalism aside & move onto some other cracking headlines, including this snide corker from industry newsletter @hortweek. Oh yes, ‘attack’

@GWmag @TheMontyDon @Telegraph @Independent @thetimes @hortweek pops up again, funnily enough. Could the headline writers have drawn a breath, looked at what @TheMontyDon *actually* said and maybe penned… ‘Monty Don challenges industry over ongoing failure to end use of climate-wrecking peat’? Could a bit more honesty & journalistic rigour

@GWmag @TheMontyDon @Telegraph @Independent @thetimes @hortweek have won the day? Of course, but it seems beyond the wit of @hortweek & indeed almost all pub’s with #gardening as primary content to do a proper journalistic job & CHALLENGE industry. So the toxic headlines kept on giving. Here’s more boycott BS and another ‘@TheMontyDon attack’

@GWmag @TheMontyDon @Telegraph @Independent @thetimes @hortweek You do have to wonder if the editorial team @hortweek had the bright idea that they might go & ask industry figures why they’ve failed to end peat use following decades of dither, rather than set up @TheMontyDon as a #peatfree straw man to deflect attention from industry failure?

@GWmag @TheMontyDon @Telegraph @Independent @thetimes @hortweek But @hortweek kept kept faith with the snide invective toward @TheMontyDon with yet another corker👇And there’s that word ‘attack’ again. How many times now… An antidote to the tabloid-esque poison might have helped: ‘Monty Don raises profile of scandal of continued peat use.’

@GWmag @TheMontyDon @Telegraph @Independent @thetimes @hortweek This kind of toxic language toward ‘but he’s not a trained horticulturist’ @TheMontyDon isn’t confined to those that fail to hold our #gardening & #horticulture industries to account. Comment threads are rank with eye-watering invective, showing what a kindly bunch some folk are.

@GWmag @TheMontyDon @Telegraph @Independent @thetimes @hortweek I’ve saved possibly the worst until last & it’s another @hortweek corker. It has it all: straw man, evasion, deflection, but somehow the way this headline talks about @TheMontyDon is reprehensible. We’re talking about a person, not some kind of problem that must to be dealt with.

@GWmag @TheMontyDon @Telegraph @Independent @thetimes @hortweek To wrap, it’s bleeding obvious that mining peat to grow petunias is doing harm on diff. levels. But trying to have a grown-up, widely-aired conversation about it, as @TheMontyDon has found, is still resisted by a toxic, defensive industry that doesn’t know what responsibility is.

@GWmag @TheMontyDon @Telegraph @Independent @thetimes @hortweek As a footnote, it’s worth having a brief whizz through the comments on this article @MailOnline. If you were surprised by the industry and media vitriol here👆directed at @TheMontyDon some of the public’s offerings will make your eyes water. #gardening

tinyurl.com/y63lgqam